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The Road

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My mother moved her things out of my parents’ bedroom into the attic guest room. When I asked where guests would sleep, my father said, “Matthew, don’t be an asshole.”

Style Shifts

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Style Shifts “Oh, yes, my cousin. We were rude boys until the armed gangs started to gather. Used to be we could pass a night driving, playing our songs, acting tough. Yeah. We'd mouth off, flash some teeth, spark some anger when we felt like it. We…

Godot, Go Wait Yourself!

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a bone-crusher handshake

Mechanics

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Seems I was in the wrong place, wrong time.

Cancer Always Calls Collect - Part 1

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Again, that was not the man I once knew. If they were taking Las Vegas odds; I should be the one dealing with this first. Why was it him and not me?

Mastery of All Thangs Including Sonatas and Piledrivers

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My old buddy Snoop Dogg saunters into the room, and we go through a handshake routine that takes over ten minutes, ending with double-backflips and some brotherly penis swordplay.

The Story You Wanted

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For I would draw a diagramTo signify the things I amBut I think you know--Todd Rundgren The door was opened before me. I know that's not a good way to start out on an adventure, but it is what happened to me. I didn't see any beckoning light, I felt a crazy urge, like…

Passing a Church

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Does God feel the same way / whenever you practice your indifference toward me

The Pitch

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This is what I am saying now.

Neapolitan

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I wonder how many crumbs he can drop to make a cookie, whole, so I can relax a little and throw out the self help books about how I'm not right in the motherfucking head,

We're Still Here

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the beeps, rhythmic, tell us that you're still with us

Disposable Pleasures

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when I take the time/now to remember/ you have become/a thousand page/memory book

At a supermarket checkout looking through a window on May Day.

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So I missed the May Day parade again.

You Knew It

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was only a small enough matter of time before you started to show up as new words like soft pink clues dropped inside tiny fingernail teacups to find their innermost meaning, then wishes, floating up near the top like…

Big Dipper

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“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”

The Anniversary

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.... The sun tears through the windshield as if it were an six-foot wide magnifying glass and for a moment it feels to them both as if they are in a manipulated universe of fire and ice, storm and heaven, as it does when the skies crack and spread open a

Out of That Bed 1963

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My father's hands were huge. His left knuckles gashed as a kid when he rode his bike too close to a moving train. When his fingers fisted around a glass, the scarred joints bulged from his grip like blind eyes.

world's a mess

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until i french kiss every atmosphere my mouth ready to explode like roman candles sparking my fingers sparking off the tips of my sparking fingers

In an Unfamiliar Restaurant.

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I find myself in an unfamiliar restaurant, its cuisine an uncomfortable pastiche of Croatian, Burmese, Jamaican and leftovers of long ago Sunday dinners in a small New England town.

Vostok

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"[A]ppointed an official supplier of watches for the Ministry of Defence of the Soviet Union in 1965."

Goodbyes

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Literature

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My God is not a God of chance, she said.The year was youth and it was our first dance.She wanted to make sure we agreedlove is for God and lust is for Satan.Of course I do, I said. You're safe with me.Neither of us had moves and were relievedto stand in the corner and…

For Kate

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I had to kill someone today. Do not be alarmed, she was only real to me.

Three Wives

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The heart attack felt like the time Alison stabbed me with knitting needles. It made me want to see her. She was the fun wife, the first of three. I was morbid and full of regret — my drinking had driven them away, no kids in the wake. I decided to visit all of…

Cryptsville USA

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pornographic bookmarks

One Sick, Two Sick, Red Sick, Blue Sick

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I found a diseased fish / wedged between some boulders near the pier

Life of Charlotte

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A wall of icons can be beautiful if you don’t look closely at the hands. The hands tell stories of too short lives and unrequited love.

Session

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I looked at her greying face and wrinkling hair and tried to fathom why my counsellor was suddenly being such a bitch.

The House of Cézanne

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Is there anything more emphatic than an ovary?

Kitchen Knife (n.)

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Kitchen Knife (n.)1. A standard kitchen tool consisting of a sharp blade attached to a handle intended for cutting, peeling, chopping, slicing, and dicing.2. Used primarily for food preparation (see also BUTCHERING; BACKSTABBING; JACK THE RIPPER; DEATH BY A THOUSAND…