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Soft.
Some days are softer than others. Some are cold, some daysthe sweat drips down the sides while theyhunt you down,pungent and sharp,slicing through the sleep that held you turbulent and bleak. Some days creep and steal you out to the seas of sour discontenttide sliding in and filling up the holesof memory, toppling the fragile…
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Fern Hill
He told me when he’s gonehe wants me to read Fern Hillout loudat the end, before they lower himinto the groundIn my own voice, somehowshaped so much by his that I’m surprised sometimes that mine lacks the depthand the timbre of his.I think about the nightmares he told me aboutwhen I was youngStaring at his…
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Fire
And one day you realizeit’s taken up residence inside you,a parasiteinvisible and sucking the lifefrom your limbs and your eyes, rendering youmotionless and blinda marionette walkingstep toestep toestep toedangling from the strings held fastin its lying mouthheaded toward a place you never recognized as home, and your head isEmpty, a vesselto be filled with confetti…
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Tipsy Pondering Eyebrows
What are you thinking?You have tipsy pondering eyebrows.I’m not thinking about anything, really. Thinking about how much I love the porch lifeThinking about you.The music is dull, coming through soup can cell phone speakers and our voices pepper the soundtrack of the night likehailstones, unexpectedin a steady summer storm. The Buzzcocks, man.The fucking Buzzcocks.Remember when…
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Brain
My brain has gonestagnant,stale from too many years of stayingquiet in the interest of not sayingThe Wrong Thingaround The Right People and a little crack I madeabout pop country was cute when I was an accessory but don’t speaktoo loudand let on that I canThinkand what it really meant was Hushpaint the backdrop of my…
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Foul
You are cannibalsfeeding on the blood of our childrenbaked into a foul and vulgar crust ofignoranceand religion. Wretched goblins, crouched downpeering under skirts and intobathroom stalls, screamingDEVIANTwithout a trace of ironyor self awarenessIf the god you laudtells you that a child deserves to diefor the simple sin of daring to existthen mine(and I am it)should…
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Matthew
The light outside the garage comes onwhen I turn aroundcatches the lens of his sunglasses half hidden between the seatsIt’s late and I’ve been out too long,longer than I meant todrinking with my sister — only twobut school’s about to startand you know how teachers talk.He imagines, I thinkthat nothing gets to me and I…
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Just
There’s thing that happens where it juststops. The caring, I meanand I hope it happens like that for everyone(well, almost everyone;some folks deserve to suffereven thoughit’s impolite to say so)it’s so much nicer than the prolonged agonyof heartbreakthat I’ve heard about. I got these sideways looks for a while, like–and someone even saidyou can’t really…
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Sense
Sometimes there’s this little sparkof magicand you know I don’t believe in thator much of anythingbut logic and reason but stillthe way things fell into place is just so –Just so. I was sofuckingsick of it all, if I had to sit throughone morepop country anthem or God awful cover of a song that wasperfectly…