1758 7 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				“It’s a sad thing,” I said, “when a man has to suffer just for getting a little on the side.” 
					
				 
				
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1033 5 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				I suspect I’ll make the right decision. 
					
				 
				
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1298 6 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				You left paint and blood smeared on the wall. 
					
				 
				
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1553 8 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				When Roger was small his two favorite toys were a tiny, squat doll called Care and a rubber millipede. 
					
				 
				
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271 6 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				I offer you an orangeYou say you'd prefer an appleI offer you an orangeYou say, noI want an appleYou say you had a bad experienceWith eating an orangeHmm, I sayYes, but what does it matter?You say you are not eating the orangeUnder no circumstances will you everEat an… 
					
				 
				
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1370 5 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				before your full lips touch
mine. 
					
				 
				
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1486 10 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				Lapping salt beads from/
my crackling, ecstatic lips.  
					
				 
				
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1200 7 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				It was if you memorized my ever detail but not the why.
And perhaps that is what love is. Was that love?
I lie in bed waiting for the man who came after you 
to join me. I hear his heavy footsteps and know 
he wants to go to Hawaii too, 
when our bud 
					
				 
				
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1493 10 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				The loss of my first mentor came as a harsh blow. Roaming the forest with my dog Rosie just wasn’t the same. Her heart was in the right place, but when it came to armed combat, Rosie just didn’t have the goods. 
					
				 
				
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1064 5 4 
      
			 
			
			
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1366 4 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				I wrote this paragraph (the first in a series of 14 paragraphs) shortly after Frank Sinatra had died and during my last visit to my boyfriend, M.  He had not seen me write something in years. 
					
				 
				
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1229 6 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				i am two / one part me / another part them 
					
				 
				
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936 5 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				She’s an old soul who was 
scattered to the winds 
like a thousand butterflies 
and a moth 
She has no center 
and flits from event to event 
and can’t miss out on 
a thing, because crikey, 
what if she missed something 
important?
And the m 
					
				 
				
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1587 6 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				Every day is exactly the same. 
					
				 
				
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1200 5 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				He stopped believing in God when he learned how balls worked.   Spermatocytes turned into spermatids and spermatids turned into spermatozoa, the transition taking place in tiny loop de loops called the seminiferous tubules which contain at least three… 
					
				 
				
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2196 7 4 
      
			 
			
			
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1970 8 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				For fifteen years Wendy waited for Harry to leave his wife. From time to time, there’d been ultimatums, break-ups too, but they never stuck.  Now Wendy’s luck was about to change.
It was Tuesday, Wendy and Harry’s standing night to be together. His wif 
					
				 
				
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1091 5 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				cold plunges its lethal chill spade/into the dirt before cold takes the earth/to ossify it stiff with ice/the semblance of cold the semblance of death/said only to be felt this side of the grave. 
					
				 
				
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1658 4 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				My head was swimming with nicotine, the coldness of the first snow, and unfinished love thoughts. 
					
				 
				
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1152 6 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				It is not really about boxing.  
					
				 
				
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1558 4 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				She couldn’t help but wonder what 93 year-old Sohrabjee looked for in the torn, dusty lithograph of Marilyn in Persia one of the orderlies had stuck to the wall of the corridor outside Jasmine Wing decades ago.  
					
				 
				
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1767 8 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				                                   He beats the girl, stabs her 22 times, rapes her, then uses his  fingertips to push her orbital sockets into the back of her head before killing  her. At trial, he laughs about whether or not there… 
					
				 
				
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1418 1 2 
      
			 
			
			
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				she shivered in the ceasefire like a virginal nude brought to life. 
					
				 
				
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1332 8 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				. . . with reference to the Compass of Discourse 
					
				 
				
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1547 6 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				the names / she carried (within) 
					
				 
				
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2122 9 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				Midway through the fall semester, an unremarkable girl in Professor Woody's Advanced Fiction workshop dyed her hair an unnatural shade of dark, changed her name to Tasmina, and turned in a story filled with made-up words.   
					
				 
				
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1464 9 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				Once upon a time there was a Vietnamese restaurant. And then there were two, and four, and eight... 
					
				 
				
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2277 5 2 
      
			 
			
			
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				The Six-Second Rule
They come to the new world, but bring the old world with them – the six-second rule. 
	When their bagel drops face down on the café floor, apparently it’s the old world six-second rule that applies, instead of our own  
					
				 
				
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1846 7 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				She began guiding Penny’s arms, whispering movements through her body. Memory and experience sang through every fiber of their being. The song had become her life. 
					
				 
				
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1606 7 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				Susie watched the record, her mouth agape just slightly, the spinning vinyl unveiling the powerful sound of a voice she'd wanted to hear her whole life.  
					
				 
				
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