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The Night She Took Her Dignity Back

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She had endured three years of abuse for those hot, fleeting moments of tenderness—just enough warmth to keep her second-guessing the bitter frost. Now the ring promised a lifetime of biting back her pain.

Audition

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My piano tutor, a walnut-faced shrew, rapped my knuckles with her small plastic baton to smack them back into the proper tempo, an adagio I’d mastered weeks before. One hour until the audition and damn if this woman didn’t break the skin of two of my fing

Assiduity Twelve

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Rasheed changes his mind about working for me. He can't bring himself to break with Uzma. The bond between them is too strong. I admire his loyalty, to her and to her parents. Don turns out to be my most reliable ally. Plus, he brings a ragtag security force with…

K2

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Now it's late. I am hanging upside down from a rope coiled around my crushed left ankle, the pain too sharp to be really felt, as the excess blood to my head makes my thoughts fuzzy. I am almost two meters from the rock face, thirty-five hundred meters above sea-level, the…

Suicidal Thoughts

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There were so many suicide choices it seemed overwhelming. The chief criteria was the least pain.

Eucharist

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The Devil and the Holy Ghost played Euchre on Friday nights. The Devil drank rock and rye and the Holy Ghost went for Miller Lite. What just irks hell out of me, pardon my French, the Ghost began, is that nobody knows who the fuck I am.

FANTASY

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Normally I would have never drank such a wine, but it was late on a Friday evening and the bottle was on the house...

nerd

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We are nerds. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us bitch.

Slaloming the Siphoners

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Hipster-neutral dressed simulacra-person offers a glance and a wave, sudden as a ping-pong serve, designed to crowd your space and "pal" you but I dodge it — I'm practiced at this.

31 & 32

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Many hours to make a brick: many bricks to make a curve.

Calm and Level

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The funeral grounds look level and calm. We leave the urban world behind for an instant. The other world has claimed someone. But we are in limbo. It is a terrible thing when a connection or breakthrough moment is not achieved or granted by the universe. …

Solution

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I wrote her a poem.She said, “I hate poetry.” I said, “OK, just read the words then."

Christmas Email from an Aging Wicked Stepmother

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Your stepsisters send their love. All three are still on the wagon.

Salome's Dance

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Salome said she wanted the head of John the Baptist on a platter, adding the latter touch of finery for reasons all her own.

Affairs of the Heart

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The next morning, I was shaved, skinned and stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey for its untimely demise.

Listening Room Night

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The surroundings, he thought, are just as important as what's surrounded.

Beach Busker

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I fondly remember those warm, weekend evenings at twilight on the beach. After the frolic of the waves flattened, sending the surfers home and, after the last bait was spent, sending the surfcasters away, I'd set up the little, foldable, 3‘x4', rectangular stage I always…

Reality TV is Dead

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Welcome to the world of (un)reality television. He/she who dies with the most stories wins. Another kind of religion. The Church of Being Famous For Whatever.

A Christmas Story

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Two days before Christmas 1946, my mother put me on an Illinois Central railroad train at the whistle stop of Neoga, Illinois.

Sunday Morning Series- 4: Roast Lamb of God

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Squeeze the Word into Flesh

Essay on Cranial Electrification and Empirical Clarification

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Although decades have passed since I last tasted lysergic acid with diethylamide flavoring, I cannot fail to remember the tasting.

What Some Boys Do

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I squeeze the soft bag tighter between my legs.

Better Off In My Head

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The morning news. The birthday present you bought me. This poem. My hair when I wake up in the morning, at any given point in the day. Pigeon pose. My singing voice. How much I love myself. Coffee. Sex. Not having sex. Having movie star sex. Ha

Peacemaker

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He had the cannonball head of Hemingway, the stump neck, sloping shoulders and barrel chest.

Cleverbot conversation RSC00206460

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maybe if I bat my lashes just right, or look prim enough to fly, you just might touch me tonight, and the dream will pop and fizz and I will wake somewhere, your hands smoothing these lines of worry away.

The Last Time I Saw Jackson

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The last time I saw Jackson, I didn’t write down the set list. This time I didn’t write down the set list, either.

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.2 - c.3

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Ahead, she heard voices. She approached very slowly, as quiet as possible. She knelt behind a pair of shrubs and peeked through a small opening.

Band Names Too

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Gun Notches Working Stiffs Garlic Torch Dog Crouch Menbrain Membrane Ein Zwei Drei Fake German Soldier Wet Tissue Tissue Paper Pants Tough Stain Adam and Evil Closed Loophole Wait For It Fiscal Cliff and the Cliffhangers Repu

HOTEL PEOPLE

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It's 6:45 a.m. A gritty, mundane sort of magic pervades the air at "Valentine’s" in the Hamilton Hotel.

Memoirs from a Book

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I know you want to hold me. I won't break. I love you. Your hands - when they caress me are soft and gentle. My words speak only to you. They speak of love and of how we spend…