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Dream

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Lately, instead of the images of dreams waking me up, as has always been the case, it is sounds that jolt me awake. The thumps and roars and slithering of creatures unseen. The ghosts that slam cupboards shut. The apparitions of robbers breaking down the front door:…

Toy

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In the store, multi-color kites dance along the ceiling. And in the costume aisle, a young mother shows her daughter how to tie her shoe. “Bunny ears, around the corner…” Glass animals shine in rows on high shelves. A boy examines lengths…

Conjecture

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Sunday, May 9, 1773 Sir — The world must at present be perpetual on the primitive state of human nature Conjecture The jealousy and envy boils over a dead weight strangled serpents in the Temple

Our Date Was Better In Reverse

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I felt my words reach out and try to grab him by the heart. They missed.

Gyre and Gimble

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I’ve done my part of the job in conservative clothing. Lonnie’s done her part looking like Dolly Parton.

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

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Lu loved his mother, but her anxieties nagged at him like poison ivy. You can't avoid scratching it, but the more you do, the worse it gets.

Bootstraps

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I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup

Homunculus

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Tiny was my daughter. Or what was left of her. A mucous-y chunk of what was once in my womb and then wasn’t.

Kamal (from "Echoes: Five Men Speak")

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Hoo-ah! I love these open mikes, I get a chance to pour it out, this… whatever it is, this passion, all this love from I’ll never know where, and then, and then, sometimes, too much hate. Everything’s like all zowie!—splashing scarlet and purple,

Modes of Motion

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I saw an ocean drained and filled / at the flats of Saemangeum.

Grand Union

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She suggested just moving in together. A lot less constrained by convention she, on occasion, did not wear a bra.

How It Started

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At two AM I went to bed, and the mill shut down shortly after. The silence jerked me out of sleep so fast I almost screamed. Choking and sweating, I lay there and tried to figure out why I was so scared. And then I realized: for the first time in half a y

Three Teeth

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Three teeth. You can pick them out if you hit pause just right. Probably not a person in the entire valley who hasn’t seen that video from the Eastern Cheerleading Finals. They even showed the tape on the eleven o’clock news in Scranton, my face ci

A Christmas Mistake

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But that night we were happy, looking all around at the bright lights of the several cities that we could see.

AFTER

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Two lovers — their genders / faces / social identities / etc. up to the viewer’s imagination (though I caution you, dear reader, not to imagine yourself in this role due to the psychic intensity of the following passages) — writhe against each other

Off the Map

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It's difficult to remember, much less write down, the hard times you thought were unforgettable when you have a full stomach. It's hard to remember that dirty little room you rented in that house, from a Bosnian landlord, on 27th avenue and Missouri. The…

The Plinktonians

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Brian had spent the morning filling out applications all over Knox County, and by noon he was more than ready to call it a day. But apparently there was one last squirt of virtue in him, because heading home he saw a Help…

A Poem Written About You Because I Missed You

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what i will always remember of you is of that singular sunday / when a black lock of hair brushed against your cheek

Tournament Legend

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Man I can hit a shot from forty feet. Snap! No rim. You can’t.

Tooth Decay

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The schedule fell smoothly into place: After Imogene went home at the end of the day, Calvin locked the office door, then he and Rosalie marched into the examination room and she flossed him.

Where We Come From

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Where We Come From (ver. 2.0) (Leadwood, Missouri pop. 1,200) I Matt lit a joint here driving beneath the arms of dying trees The moon shone through in jigsaw puzzles that we could never quite figure out Gravel crackled like leaves in fire …

Momma’s Don’t let Your Daughters Grow up to be Cowdykes

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She could see very clearly in her mind many size five girls with radically short hair and Cowdyke outfits from places like L. L. Bean.

Identity

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We’re forty-three.

Journey to Malta, from the novel "Grok"

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The journey to Malta would take almost four days. Both men, with knapsacks and sleeping bags on their backs, stepped eagerly onto the train in Zürich. A whistle blew and they were off. In his knapsack, Grok had brought pictures of his family

Take Out

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You're stupid drunk. And not feeling so good. You know you should stop doing this. But what else is there to do, especially since your brother went in? And now Roberto's gone to pick up his lady and left you alone, empty. Couldn't even drive you home. You don't…

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

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Morpheus dreams… […fairground atmosphere burlesque hand-operated steam organs calliopes cut and spliced reversed harmonium kaleidoscopic grotesque waltzing carousel…] PABLO FANQUE'S CIRCUS ROYAL Grandest Night of the Season! and positively the LAST NIGHT BUT THREE! being…

The Bludgeoning of a Burgeoning Young Artist

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There was an implicit understanding, made clear by Athena's gentle stroking of Freddy's silky blond hair, that he would share her canopy bed with its frilly fuchsia pillows. He didn't mind this, despite despising the color of the pillows.

Arcana Magi - c.12: Danica Leandros, Sentinel of Seiryuu

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Of course, there was one love Danica had in her heart that stood above all those luxuries, magic.

Don't Mangle the Mongol

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Back in the Dark Ages, the Mongols invented the first hamburger pattie. They put slabs of beef under their horses' saddles and after a few miles of rough riding -- voila! a flattened piece of cow meat. They then proceeded t

Jimothy

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Alien meets nicotine