1222 3 1
|
"Look Emily, I’m charging your solar powered calculator and helping you relieve your dependence on foreign oil."
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1386 2 1
|
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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1922 6 2
|
She reached under the tissue and pulled out a third gift.
“It’s like peeling open my heart,” he said, “one layer for each year.”
|
1271 1 1
|
But Jake doesn't hear anything. He is pure, unfiltered, liquid rage. Jake kicks Rolex dude once, twice, five times in the ribs. On the last kick, there is a snapping sound.
|
1810 0 0
|
Alysia and Megumi were now twelve years old and for the first time, they were celebrating their birthday together. It was also special for them because it was a leap year and they did not have to celebrate on March First.
|
1330 4 1
|
The little girl spooned strawberry yogurt into her mouth as a pleasant morning breeze swept across the balcony of the hotel. The girl lifted the cup and stuck her tongue inside to lick the yogurt off the edges. Across the small round table, the girl's mother sat…
|
1331 0 0
|
Scott was sure his father was reassured by the sticky stains in his Penthouse; Dad found them when Scott was thirteen. Dad had just one issue of that venerable porno, which Scott defiled with his joy. It was not the Penthouse models…
|
929 3 0
|
Deciding what is important from the life of a man that you haven't spoken to in ten years was a task that had seemed impossible at the outset. But now, here she stood, having done just that.
|
1720 9 5
|
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…
|
2293 25 11
|
After the affair was over, she told her husband she’d been smoking. Obviously he didn’t know, but he knew. One can never hide the fact that one has been smoking.
He said he could smell it on her.
|
1138 0 0
|
In se'enties style serenading strut
A passin all the pretty birds in kin',
The feathered Stetson ‘clipsin crimson suit,
A whistlin Dixie blues ‘cross county-lines.
|
1270 3 1
|
A canister of unused laughter taken from the mouth of a baby not yet born
A splinter of wood from a cross, perfectly preserved in dark tea
taken from the belly of a dead Irishman
A milky vial of smog taken from the air of Los Angeles circa 1965
A
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1324 10 0
|
It’s been stored away in the cedar chest since my mother put it there in the early 60’s, well, 1962 to be exact. She was a careful woman, but over these many years the bow has flattened, and the wind-up parts have corroded some from non-use. Oh, the
|
1220 10 1
|
These are the three facts of my life.
|
1492 9 4
|
Three hours isn't that long.
|
1470 0 0
|
As children we invent games and we're really creative. We concoct ridiculous rules and enjoy making adaptations to them. And everything makes sense. Then you grow up, lose creativity. You don't invent games anymore. Recess is replaced with a second…
|
1594 0 0
|
Something was there. It was undeniable, and he turned to face the padre, whose eyes were now clenched shut. Without asking for further permission, he moved his hand in-between the intestines, which felt like curtains of tightly—wound chorizos. Suddenly
|
2070 20 8
|
Writers, hopeful ones, hopeless ones, poets and petty penmen, worked as bartenders, librarians, substitute teachers, anything.
|
1150 4 0
|
I had never seen anyone die. For first time in my life, I was afraid, even more than when my step-dad got drunk and roughed me up. When Dale Franklin got shot last year standing on the corner outside the laundry-mat it took the ambulance forty-five minu
|
1215 8 0
|
“You always use that as a crutch. You, a sixteen year old girl. The way you were…” She looked at me, shaking her head, looking at my body as if remembering some wrong, some thing that should not have been.
|
1147 2 0
|
He had a lean build, except, remarkably, his midsection was perfectly barrel-like. As if he kept an alien lifeform in his belly, cultivated by years of Pabst and Yuengling transfusions.
|
1178 1 0
|
There was a man crying, walking his dog
and a woman drove by
on a flat tire
They brought coffee to the tables
in large glasses on white saucers
There’d be long silver spoons
with which to stir in strong
|
2000 4 1
|
This is a story about Jim and Robin. They are strangers. Or at least they were. They are at the same party, but standing on opposite sides of the room. Robin is standing near the door thinking, “I wish there was someone here to talk to,” when she sees Jim. …
|
1376 1 0
|
Peggy woke up in the bedroom smelling burned pumpkin and she instantly knew her husband Tim had remained unconscious and insensible on the couch again and let the candle burn down. She and Lennon had watched him the previous night take control of the…
|
1354 1 1
|
I was enchanted with the suppleness and intensity of her movement and slowly edged to hide myself askew from the jam as not to disturb her.
|
1557 4 2
|
The proud, burly tree / Rests on the now crashed TV / Thanks a lot, nature
|
3573 8 2
|
There's just no pleasing her.
|
2192 4 0
|
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m thrilled.”
“Thrilled?”
“Yes, I’m thrilled that something is happening to me. It’s been such a long time since anything has happened. I was getting really bored, but this is great.
|
2315 23 6
|
And when at night you stare
at dark walls and one pair of lips
comes closer, whispering in perfect German
Ich bin deine Mutter -
|
1703 2 3
|
The reaction had started, the hives and respiratory swelling. Maddy huffed for air, each inhalation rattling her throat louder, more hoarse.
|