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But, I Did

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I read the runes, the cards, the signs, the sticks. I consulted tarot cards and read tea leaves. I listened to you, deconstructed every word and look and tone with the harshest logic and cynicism I could muster. If there was some way to decipher what you

You leave me

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laying with you, thinking with you, breathing with you

To My Future Ghost

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Oh, by the way here’s my old phone number 548-7899 Remember? Call me It will ring somewhere in the past We can make amends

Medusas

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I didn’t kiss Odgeir because I fancied him, I kissed him because I knew other people fancied him.

Each Planned to Kill the Other

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What was heinous about it was how easy I assumed it would be. That was truly heinous, and it was a mistake in the end to think of it that way. But I’ve learned from what’s heinous. I’ve bought a plastic cylinder filled with nylon zip ties. They’re great f

Payback is Lumpy

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Had a girl in 1968, an Ohio dairy farmer's daughter, and when she finally invited me to dinner with her folks, they passed the pitcher with the fresh milk. When I poured it, clots of butterfat fell into my glass with big splashes; while they watched me looking at that…

Living for You

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I’d say something I didn’t mean, then she’d say something she didn’t mean, and on and on until one of us came up dry and would be forced to—take exception to something the other had said, to take it seriously.

Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get To the River

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I think we could be twins, our hands hitching us together like paper dolls, our parkas making blobby round balloon shapes as outlines for our bodies. I imagine each of us holding onto someone else, and the line continuing on from there until we have a cha

a girl's mane

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Wild bore the wind down on me, coming out of the heavens that turned around the stars of the evening. The longing and the appetite at work in the body, all tickling to open a girl’s mane, gaping, health-giving crossroads to the body. Hail and farewell t

Five Million Yen: Chapter 68

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Ben’s tactic for diverting Monique’s thoughts from the encounter with Zoë and the horrific episode in his dressing room was to dance, dance, dance.

On Tundergarth Farm

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There’s an oak tree in Hanover, New Hampshire. Twenty years old, it is still a sapling. I imagine that one day the tree will have a commanding view of the Connecticut River and Norwich, Vermont, where my mom sat in bed, crying, watching everything unfol

The Man Who Loved Purple

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If it had a surface, he painted it purple. If it didn’t have a surface, he painted it purple.

Scar

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I stared at these meteor impacts, feeling far away, a lone sentient cloud admiring the scoured yet wondrous earth-of-this-girl below me, the lean slope of her side, the soft dip of her neck, the sharp edge of her cheekbone, the monarch wing of her eyelash

Four Queens

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She rolls up at school with the word MAYHEM marker-penned across her stomach, wrote so big the first and last letters graze each inner thigh bone. She says it's in honour of some rock star I never knew.

Guy Who's in Love With Modern Notions of Love and a Good Thing Happens to Him After a Bad Thing

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Vince did a dance of love and courtship around the Camaro moving crab-like around it with his arms hung low, raising them only to lower his sunglasses.

The I Hate to Fuck Book

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This book is for those who have learned that sex is one of life's unpleasant experiences--like paying taxes, or renewing a driver's license--that does not become less painful through repetition.

Desire

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She said “I have to go”, he answered with his eyes “Don't” and they stepped closer to each other in the kitchen, a step on the tiled floor, the remnants of their tea cold on the counter top.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 1

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The DC-9 bounced in the turbulence over the north Pacific waking the dozing Ben Clarone.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

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Joanne Simpson sat in her pew of the church that dominated her tiny town, listening to the buzzing of disturbed voices like a hive of bees trapped in a wall. She knew exactly what was wrong. Some parishioners sat on the edge of the pews, while some whispe

Uniquely Portland

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He saw his mother standing over him, and he called out to her for help, but she only laughed and faded into the paper towel dispenser.

Waiting

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She saw no sense in waiting. Waiting was a weakness.

Winter in Phoenix Arizona

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Winter in Phoenix Arizona happens in July. An overgrown lawn is working its way up onto The sidewalk. And then there's you with your mower, A hidden newspaper in the middle of everything. Snowflakes puff out from under Spinning blades. You hover above like…

Island Music

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Of all the things Shelly hated about her job, the music was the worst.

Blind Spot

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If the photographs made sounds, they would rumble like static from an impending thunderstorm, pressed between the pages of a yellowing dictionary. Compressed sound, searching for the proper words.

The One-Dollar Minister

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The man could be a total brute, though the truth was he had the softest of hearts too. A real gentle giant. But get him going on a drunk jag with too much ouzo in his system, and look out.

Sushi, Bentham Ave.

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I suggested a threesome for her birthday. In jest, I thought. But here we are; me in my checkered Oxford, Katie in her red silk blouse, as planned. We're at this sushi place at the corner of 9th and Bentham. “Zuma.” I hate this restaurant, to tell you the…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 11

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Michiko never telephoned Frank from Washington or Chicago.

The Nanny

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     In the dark, alone after she was gone, he would whisper her name into his pillow and fight the tears more out of shear exhaustion than anything else. He had mourned for her even before she had passed, as he watched helpless while the disease marched slowly and…

Necessary Subterfuge

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I'm very worried that you'll find some reason to leave me so I tend to act overly assertive and dominant due to my insecurities but I hope you understand that this is for your own good and soon you'll know how much I love you

The Fat Girl

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She never leaves her desk, but food appears like magic.