4163 7 9
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It’s Leap Year and my school is observing Sadie Hawkins Day, which means the sixth-graders have a dance where the girls ask the boys to dance and the rest of us get to dress up like hillbillies.
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1229 20 12
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Our ironies don’t make us happy
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1177 14 11
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Tender bodies sizzle on the grill.
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1434 20 11
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When the car arrived, Kitty bounded out, lipstick-stained cigarette dangling, silver hair tightly teased. We could not escape her hug, smelling of peppermint and Aqua-Net and Jean Nate.
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2002 18 12
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Exhaling slowly and deeply, Tyler settled his back in against the saddle of the tree's broad trunk and let it all go.
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1488 14 9
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“Mommy,” the voice was thin as a fledgling's. “I'm here, baby,” I said. An arm rose from the pavement and small fingers wound themselves into my…
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1052 14 11
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sheets, white, coarse
redolent with Clorox
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1474 18 8
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Overnight, I felt drunk, as if headed for hangover, but I hadn't drunk enough to cause it. What caused it? Superstitions dialed in sleep.
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1539 17 10
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Can you write a 250-word story without using the letter "e"?
Ruth's back is curving forwards, folding, softly caving into tomorrow.
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1542 17 10
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The leaves are telegrams sent from the branches to the wind, saying, “it's over stop don't send kisses stop forget me.”
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1513 12 12
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Your soap on the shelf in the shower
melts with my every hair wash
and I'll miss it the way I should have missed you.
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202 20 10
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6% of anorexics die of their disorder, most of sudden heart failure.
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1235 15 11
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When Lois finally found him down there, Johnny was wedged between a large rock and the trunk of an old, long since fallen, cottonwood tree. She said as she got to him, she heard his gurgling breath, fighting fiercely to stay alive. When she saw the deep, gathering, red…
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1786 17 11
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1351 14 10
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I think he viewed Communion as an act of hygiene that allowed him to go on being fiery and self-determined.
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1174 12 12
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That afternoon she met me in the lobby of my hotel and we simply smiled at each other in the elevator going up to my room where we sat on the couch for about three hours and told of our lives, of being apart, for so many years, then sensing our time was nearly used up, I…
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1070 14 11
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They wear their bodies recklessly, these cempazuchitl,
these flowers of the dead.
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1447 24 10
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Clayton had a grin like the hand of a beast that stretched as long as her gravel road...
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2106 22 7
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The first thing she remembers is sunshine, then her own dawning, and feeling the lumps on her head and bruises on her face and pain in her heart and aloness of her soul.
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1574 18 12
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There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.
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1427 12 12
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They'd taken so much: ivory, rubber, copper, gold. Wealth for the grabbing. No remorse.
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1662 15 8
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If This Were Baltimore East A spray of change in the lilies and loose rubber, she pulled close to the wall. She smiled at the trucks, her handful of loot. Hallelujah, he said, converting. West Like 4 miles of cakes, they counted…
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1302 13 11
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You were busy, moving, alert inconstant motion; packingbooks, clothes, paintings;deciding yes to this, no to that. I was simply tryingto settle somewhere in the space.We'd known it for years when things were in place. Now, this abrupt interruption of…
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286 21 9
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2021 15 11
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1633 12 12
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Columbus Avenue, I’m the tense union of poor city rich city/
gentrification.
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1814 16 12
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In all my marriage stories, I am both victim and hero.
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2089 20 9
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My son thinks he's French.His accent was cute at first, but it's starting to get on my nerves. If he asks for another glass of Beaujolais I'm gonna go to jail for child abuse.Yesterday, I walked upstairs to make him turn his new Jacques Brel album down and I swear it…
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2086 15 11
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The sky was an over-bleached sheet, stretched to the point of ripping. Everything worn but clean. He was saying he'd be happier if we lived in Canada. The sun seemed very close, like a star at the top of a Christmas tree. Maybe I could pull it down. Our baby had…
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1728 19 11
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