1925 12 3
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I read the ending to her and it was clear to her--clear as it could only be to a woman, to a woman you're in love with--that I had been describing her.
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1925 5 2
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On some evenings, when I would sneak out of my room, I'd sit on the verandah and count the streetlights. I'd count the stars in the sky and trace the moon with the tip of my finger and consider how anyone could make it through the night when there were so
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1925 11 7
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When I got out I didn't buy a new suit of clothes, step into a bar, or bargain for an hour with a whore.
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1925 2 0
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She spilled her neurons across the dissecting board of the violin, breathed deep and forced herself outward with every exhalation. Her molecules mixed with wax and horsehair, and her heart valves arched in unison.
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1924 5 4
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I am a sunflower. I turn my yellow and black face, bruised, to the sun, hoping its light will heal me. With my eyes closed I can see my stamen, veins in my eyelids, bulbous where they intersect. The sun feeds…
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1924 7 3
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My favorite was a red bowler, a man's hat, which I never dared wear outside my tiny bedroom. My three brothers wanted it too much to take that kind of a risk. They'd poke me with various sharp objects: the serrated edge of the bread knife, the rusted TV
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1924 17 8
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I kiss his sunburned nose, so nice under the beach house. We hear the shower of palm leaves like wings getting ready. We talk about a time we'll no longer know each other, when he'll be sad in a bar in another state, slipping and sliding and petting lost dogs in the parking…
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1924 0 0
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The stupid suit made me look like an angel, which I hated. I wasn't here to save anyone's soul, not that any of the native animal life HAD a soul. If I have a soul myself, it is most likely in need of salvation, and in no way should I be cast in the rol
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1924 9 9
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I don't think dogs like to die with the pack.
The smell of them rotting brings trouble in the wild,
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1923 5 1
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unbury yourself from the silt and give me some seal love.
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1923 5 4
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I would be reduced to begging on the streets and hoping for a sign of her in soup lines.
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1923 6 1
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Puberty, for Ellen, was less than an overnight event—yes, she got her period in a more or less timely fashion, but what her doctor referred to coolly as secondary sexual characteristics—namely, boobs—took their damned sweet time in coming.
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1923 10 8
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hooves moon dark latch eyes rope / Bess the landlord's daughter, the landlord's blackeyed daughter / gun breasts dress shame shouts blood blood blood
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1923 6 6
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Everyday the buildings seem to be getting taller and taller.
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1923 14 8
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once she went to quenchthen she went to scrubnow she collects dead toadsgrinds them with cornmeal to feed her sowsonce she ploughed the land toiled with her face deep in dark soil her back burning in hot sunnow she works in the paper millmaking laminated labels for the…
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1923 2 1
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Fleas were a constant reminder that humans are food.
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1922 15 10
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You wanted a love poem written just for you. / Here it is. Don’t look askance.
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1922 14 5
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She asks if I would like to join them.
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1922 5 2
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John Lipkin took a drag off his cigarette and rummaged through his desk drawer looking for pot. There wasn't any. He remembered looking last night, but he looked again now. There wasn't a damn thing, just some stems…
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1922 7 6
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Butch the Labradoodle sets some necessary boundaries.
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1922 9 3
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The headlines were my source of information and contact. Four Soldiers Killed in Baghdad read one. Seven Ambushed in Fallujah. I’d read them, look for his name, and maybe clip it out. It put me there; put me in touch with him.
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1922 0 0
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The man in the gray trench coat showed up around a quarter to eight.
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1921 5 3
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Somehow I always had to sit behind him. I remember because he had a constellation of skin tags on his neck. I thought about drawing stars on him; I thought about creating a new galaxy I would rule. I should have been learning math instead. I still can’t
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1921 8 0
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What can I say about my brother, Stroman. We are twins and we hate each other. He is an honest, brave man with scruples. He is full of bullshit. He thinks I am morally twisted. He probably has a point there, but I don’t see what that has got to do with
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1921 9 5
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I found my black dot nucleus. School got me in the 10th year with the numbers spilling outta my head, but now I got the cell on my mind. Everybody's floating around this joint all pink and green college clean, yellow face Japanese, or the jet-headed Greeks with their…
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1921 3 1
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“Tonight’s news begins with a Stone’s Throw exclusive. Intimate friends of hotel heiress Paris Hilton have confided that the talent-starved celebrity has agreed to marry Quaker Bob, longtime spokesperson and package icon for Quaker Oats cereal.
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1921 7 2
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A lowing cow cracked open the darkened room like the yawn of a gravid alien.
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1921 4 0
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Let whoever may read this know: I am an evil man, and I have done evil things.
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1921 4 4
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If Single Stroke Seven were a cocktail, it would be a Bloody Mary made of one part Worcestershire sauce, the other part gas station vodka, and ketchup and hot sauce packets swiped from fast food joints. Chill with ice crystals chiseled off freezer walls,
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1921 12 11
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The other day I’m in the backyard with one of my kids, doing what he’s calling a training exercise, which is basically the two of us with flashlights, shinning the beams over the grass and up into the night to see what we can see.
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