1110 3 1
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A friend of mine died and went to heaven. At least I thought he went to heaven. I mean Freddie wasn’t such a bad guy and if he had any faults they were mild peculiarities. Like his girl watching. He was a champion girl watcher. Even in this a
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1313 2 2
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Christmas Eve arrives with a relief that the season of joy will soon be over so I can feel the pain I am denying myself. Rosie presses her face against the kitchen window, leaving ghostlike impressions of the tip of her nose and her lips on the glass tha
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1028 2 2
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“Miss Brown had spent the morning (was it just this morning? Or another?) purchasing parsnips and leafy green vegetables from the local grocers, when she was overcome by a wave of nausea. The world went black and she awoke in a windowless, doorless room.
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1329 3 1
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1237 4 0
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"Dennis," she started "exactly what the fuck are you looking at?"
"Your tits" I replied.
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1143 3 2
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How does a mixed couple come together in the Troubles?
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1041 5 1
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Now that Spring has sprung I am reminded about the day a former neighbour complained about my squirrel collection. I love to feed the black squirrels that gather in my yard and she became convinced I had trained several ninja squirrels to enter her garden
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1117 2 1
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poon fred / loop ilo/ bussy yubb tree
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1180 2 2
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My grandma kicks field goals between her bedposts, again and again. My finger is sore from holding. She says that's all I'm good for. My finger is smudged with ink from writing my poems on her paper: half-moon rowboats, clouds like whales. She twisted my finger for …
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1106 3 2
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I guess it was, you know, a daze thing: He, lightly drunk, turning red in parts of his head, in his cheeks mostly, and his chest, to which my eyes were drawn because of his v-neck douchebag shirt; and I, sleepy beyond belief, sustained like a zombie only
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1155 1 0
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His nervous cackle makes me sick - Oh, if only - Times were different - That knife - Would fit so nicely in his back
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1169 3 1
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For weeks they used every medium to say: This day will be an end or a beginning.
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1400 3 2
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Your grandmother has gotten old, in that way where one day you wake up, and you realize that someone you've been looking at your whole life suddenly looks different. That hands which used to gently place band-aids on scraped knees are…
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1495 2 2
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She hated the noiseless dying sound they made as he stuck the hook through their eyes. She always wanted for them to scream, but they never did. They didn’t even blink.
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1344 2 2
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There are worse things than getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old Puerto Rican kid. This was exactly my thinking as he stood over me, his pre-pubescent screams sounding like a baby Bruce Lee, preparing to finish me off.
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2427 3 2
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A girl’s legs stirring the air up
behind his back
as he lies between her thighs
stirring the air repetitively
like a sea anemone
stirring the water to feed
the soul, the hunger
between the legs and arms
for new life, stirring up
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1284 4 1
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What I need to secure from you now are two swears on this copy of Camp Bylaws for the Hearty and True that you won’t let my misinformed intrusion dampen your beginnings.
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1227 2 1
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He boasts of administering regular beatings to his wife and claims that she enjoyed it.
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1153 1 2
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and like the want
of weather, we walk away or come close
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558 3 1
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He tilted his head at his monitor and exhaled “No.” Minutes later, he tilted his head the other way and more sharply exclaimed “No!” Then he began over the next quarter hour simply to stare at the data stream before him, which left him speechless.
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1428 4 2
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I watched haunted as my pearl tooth circled the rotten porcelain sink. I could feel my hair thinning and my pale skin suddenly felt too loose.
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982 1 1
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1080 3 2
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To conceive of them separated was unthinkable to every wet-eyed soul at the burial.
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836 2 2
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His name was Gino. I’ll leave out the last name, not that I think it matters anymore. He came into my dad’s gas station on the near North side of Chicago to have work done on his fancy car. I was still a teenager. I accidentally opened the glove compartme
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1076 3 2
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"May I help you?"
She was beautiful.
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1546 3 2
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Teaching never occurred to me in college. I took workshops and wrote often. Friends and classmates, meanwhile, switched from studio majors to Art Education, or from English to Certification. Not me. Teaching high-schoolers would be all wrong. Briefly, I…
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1025 3 2
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I’m sorry. We couldn’t fix the country
and left her a bigger mess than we found her
Oil leaking from her shores
earthquake batter all over her skin
We couldn’t fix her, and we’re sorry
You’ll find her wreck in tatters
at the bus st
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1009 2 2
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The boy in the elevator with round glasses, /
who carried a newly-purchased broom, /
was tall and burdened with clothes
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1046 4 0
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Sometimes I think there's an octopus in my stomach. In the mornings it stretches and droops its lazy head to one side — It suctions it's tentacles to the walls of my belly and pulls them together forcing me To gag, and vomit what we didn't digest of the…
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1285 3 2
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“Life is on life’s terms,” she told me once. Her arm, wrapped in clear cellophane, was freshly adorned with a green-pigmented sand-dollar: a living shell.
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