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The Book of Punishments

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"Not a fan?" Beth asks, feeling a sliver of happiness move through her. He furrows his brow. "Then what brings you here?" "I'm here to pick up girls," Steve says simply. "Want to hit the buffet table? Want to run away to Mexico?"

Too Quiet on the Carpet

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I've seen the pinch marks. It can't be worth it.

Nope

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Can't cope.

Protect

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The fabric on the waiting room chairs is stained and matted, but has been cleaned over and over.

Thumb

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I’m trying to get this said, this piece of fact. If I am a person who can own something, then that something that I own is not me, not me as a person. I do not own my foot, my foot is my own. It’s like a whatsit, a semantic distinction I’m trying to

Far As You Want

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At a rest stop in Montpelier, they stopped to buy Cokes and gum from the vending machines. He was showing off, trying to jimmy one of the locks with a safety pin but it stayed locked and she laughed at him and he said goddamn, look at all a them Milkyways

Roses, They Can Hurt You

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Sally Sally Sally, don't you go round those roses,those roses, they can hurt you. Now that someonehas written a poem about youit is maybe not the poem you would want written about you.In another universe you may have been a revenge haikuprinted on a greeting card on…

No Collar

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Eating my teeth off pulling the silk from my lips and swallowing each kerchief wholejust trying to find the priest who has his heart set on a motorcycle

My Favorite Breakfast

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When Mavis is satisfied that her new man and I have met her criteria, and at long last she goes, no one will stand between me and the relentless boredom of my own company.

Featherweight

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As the torrent hit her, she felt her body slipping, sinking, and suddenly she didn’t know where the floor was in relation to her feet.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

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She says, “He's like, the eighth wonder of the world.” She says this without irony, and this makes you feel embarrassed for her. The laughter in this small, smoky space is getting louder. You chew your chapped lips and put your…

Block Island Sound

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So I’ll wait for her to clear all burden from her head and feel the ocean move us. Stand up, walk over to me and kiss me as we glided through open water.

a writer's plight.

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contact. intimacy. human fucking connection.

No More Tears

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When Bill was in the hospital, one month bleeding into the next, his mother visited exactly twice, both times complaining of the things she needed or couldn’t get rid of: mop heads, bleach, dustpans, detergents, grease, turgid water in the basement. And

Tomcat

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And, if you look real close, you see there’s a bullet hole next to his left ear. A stray one went past his head and straight through Santa’s heart.

I know everything's broken, but still I pretend

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Rumor was their only mission was to smash all the glass in the world. They sneezed and smashed and laughed like hell.

words, for You

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My heart and mind, eyes, hands and lips — Yours.

Flowing, Flown

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Flowing, Flown In the field stands a jealous man with fifteen eyes stored inside the cuffs of well-worn khaki pants. His pockets pull with clinking dimes…

Glass Rooster

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ghosts of the previous owners who leave a trail of whispers

Sugarexplosion

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At school, Joe knew the answers to the questions. He used to jump up onto his desk and wave his arm before Mrs. Gestapo told him he would have to stop or he would go to the principal’s office, where the other kids said that the principal made you pull d

Sandcastle

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the visual field is an in-rushing city of refractions bouncing across the water.

The World as Thrill and Calculation

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Professor Immanuel Danda finished his Ph.D. at 21, which, according to most of his friends and a few of his enemies, makes him a genius, though, personally, he always found himself to be a scruffy loser, if one were to believe, above all else, the mirror

My Brother Outside a Cantina at Night, Mexico

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in his thin, swanky black leather jacket out on the town at night in Mexico with his girlfriend

Hey, Boys, Bandits!

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I remember one time that summer I was with you (1964) going to a bar in maybe it was Melrose Park, or Northlake, or somewhere along Roosevelt Road closer to Chicago, not as far as Cicero though. I went there with a crazy gear-head named Roger Hudson, wh

Rejected Titles for Beyoncé’s New Album...

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Technique, Technique, Technique, Technique, TECHNIQUE!

News

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And the promises of promises

Road to Pucalá

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I even killed a man.

A Day in the Life of a Hip-Hop Grants Administrator

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The questions on the form are tough--the U.S. government isn't going to hand out money to just any old rapper hanging out on a corner. We want fresh 'n nasty stuff.

I am going to shoot you, but first, an Essay

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Quickly enough, it became clear, however, that this was really all about offers you could not refuse, allegations you could not contest, arrests you could not understand and acts you would not survive.

Lisa

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She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything. So I helped her to the car and we didn’t talk along the way.