2119 4 4
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Back arching, spine twisted, muscles tense and turning. I am putting off my work. Jane Eyre is in the back of my mind whispering about childhood patriarchy and I am still clinging to images from dreams before waking; my last lover's face scrunched and…
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211820
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How curious that the thought arrived first in Portuguese; perhaps, after so many years, he was finally becoming Brazilian.
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211855
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Ishpeming straddles Lake Superior to Marathon, reaches into the water, pulls out a clump of frozen hotdogs, breaks them apart one by one, rolls them between its fingers, heats them on the thigh of its corduroy pants, and throws them into the sky. Comets t
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211871
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As I lean over the chrome rail and look at the floor on the street level of the mall, I ask myself a question. If I was to fall, I wonder if it would be better to land and lie there with my eyes open or closed. Closed, I decide, would make me look like I was at peace, open…
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21181615
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lost in a taxi cab, 4:30 am
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2118188
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"leaves &damage, &shifts of shape"
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2118108
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Wake up, stretch. Check the curtained windows for sunlight or
that dreaded grey frame that forces the covers to come back up
and the alarm clock to be set to ‘Snooze’.
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21181312
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They confess love for Karaoke and metal rock. They have purchased expensive Stratocasters and Zildjians.
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2118145
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I'm the joker of the pack in our office, although I think a lot of my humour is too subtle for my colleagues
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2118109
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I ordered biscuits and gravy
at the Sunset Grill,
Just before the Amber Alert
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2118198
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YKK is a zipper manufacturer whose initials stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha. A boy told me (and I believed as a child) that YKK was my name in code.
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211720
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“Nothing we have here can stop them,” the Lumi said, “We were hoping there might be something in your world we might try.”
“Even if we had something, how would I get it to you?
”We are working on that, in the meantime, will you help us?”
I
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211722
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I saw life and beauty choking
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21172315
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It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.
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211734
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We draw a treasure map in the sandwait for the waves to wash it awayI ask you not to leave me stranded hereIf I'm bound for hell, I don't want to be left behindThe sun breaks through the edge of infinityspills over the line, soaking the sky…
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211744
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The gaudy belt buckle I got you, which would have been well-received except that you hate gaudy belt buckles.The custom t-shirt I made for you using iron-on felt letters that generously enhanced the shape of your breasts in a way unfit for public display.The wedding…
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211774
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There was a time when she could quell the loathing that Fred inspired in her. She could force it down. Back then, for instance, when they’d been in counseling, the ball of hatred had only been a little, overripe orange - squishy and occasionally mushed
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211721
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Fleas were a constant reminder that humans are food.
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2116117
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My dad at the wheel, my mother's ulcer inflamed, she puked her way across northern Alabama that summer, from Huntsville and the rusting rockets to Tuscumbia, the farthest any of us had been west. We drove through raw, blistered towns,…
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211671
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Sophie didn't stop for lunch when she worked. She showed up first in the morning and worked through until the last package was delivered. She pedaled from building to building and walked quickly, at just shy…
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21151413
|
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21152319
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Mack’s mind held a chandelier.
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211521
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It’s always daylight there
My brother comes running down the sidewalk
holding out his arms and calling my name
He’s wearing suspenders. He’s gotten thinner
in heaven
He embraces me warmly
wanting us to be friends
I give up trying to re
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211543
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I cannot read one more award winning novel by a female Asian author about the atrocities committed against their childhood, she thought. Then she sat down with her trusty yellow pad and Papermate fineline to write the next lyrical story of a female Asian writer and the…
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211597
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"... I knew Willie had gone— out the back door or out the side window. I knew he probably slipped over the fence behind my house into Lou C.’s backyard..."
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21152610
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I avert my gaze to the crab grass pushing through broken concrete, the spent condoms, the empty vodka nips rolling at her stockinged feet...
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2115148
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Trying to hide, and yet, what continued to permeate was the shiny.
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21141211
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Save the whales. Save the dolphins. Save the bored housewives. Save my hands, so often cupped over the sorrow in being alive. Save the beautiful made-up cherries of delight I feel everywhere in your presence. Save the sprawling…
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2114157
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My editor even said so: “Ralph, the Karmann Ghia is the only car for Henry. The only one he could have possibly driven.”
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211421
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When I ate with my girls, Bliss and Victoria, I would lift my head up and look at us eating until I could imagine him chiding me. “Our daughters are looking more and more like you each day,” he’d say. “Fat!” I didn’t feel like eating when I thought abo
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