Breakfast Anytime

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Linda’s Pitch black porcelain jitters. Warm wood laminate, dirty halogen glow. Dancing yellow teeth, wrinkled faces go taught. Orders are yelled out over the dull hum of politics and food. Every bad vibe just kind of rolls away. Now everything is boarded up, sitting quiet and still. No lights on, no hiss from the grill. Everyone has packed up and moved on, except me. Holding out for nothing, waiting patiently.

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Al’s Liquor Emporium Liquor bottle shards on cracked concrete talk about their favorite baseball team with extinguished cigarettes. Dandelions wriggle up to a heaven of gray skies and neon CHECK CA$HING, BEER, WINE interrupted by the undersides of tennis shoes.

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Ghosts by an Apple Tree in the Midwest Apples fall and are submerged within the tall grass in an isolated field somewhere. Eventually their red skin will become brown and rot as various forms of insects eat for weeks, building new homes within its core. Growing fat and content away from human beings who only take small bites around the circumference, discarding them when they realize their half hour lunch break has already come to an end. Far from the farmers who exploit and strangle them for their production value. Far from the treatment chemicals that encase their skins, showing up on our super market shelves. A distance from the sporadic shacks that show up in the Midwestern countryside and even farther from the skyscrapers and rush hour traffic. Ghosts jump and howl by the tree murmuring about how they wish they could check their e-mail.

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Accident I saw motor mouth loud laid out still on the concrete surrounded by scrap metal roses. Ambulance lights flashed across the wet concrete. I saw a man standing next to a dented SUV crying, trying earnestly to answer questions he would never have the right answers for.

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666 What if Satan was a really cool dude whose only real job was to make sure rebellious adolescents had something to be interested in instead of Bon Jovi.

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Missed Call Tumbling down mountains and cliffs into a dark abyss of anxiety where I hope you will be, but you probably won’t show up. Tangled up with plans. Phone wires and dial tones creating a soft bed of disillusion and miscommunication to fall on. A place far down, the soft glow of computer monitors and cell phone displays illuminating a clearing that no creature inhabits.

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Sail Boats in Maine I saw the movie It when I was in the third grade. For nights, then weeks, then years I could see the red hair and the white painted face, moving its green hands with long claws, on the side of my bed that faces the wall. When I took a shower in the morning I could see green fingers poking out from the drain. I heard the voice of the fictional clown in the depths of every thought I conjured up. Every corner I turned around the imaginary clown remained, awaiting to tear me to shreds, cutting short the small amount of time I’d spent here. Then after years of fractured sleep I got over it. Despite this I still won’t sail paper sail boats down the streets of Maine on a rainy day.

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X Billy shaved the stubble off his head and went to the show. He cringed at the cloud of marijuana in the parking lot on his way in. He imagined condescending glances behind the smoke. He found a place where the people were sparse near the center. There were other bald kids near him. He moved his feet and swung his fists. The noise surged through him. His fists slammed into faces with the quick paced roar of the music. Billy imagined these were the faces behind the smoke.

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Dumb Magic Ghosts composed of prolonged embraces are shaking their fists at the vast heavens as trees melt into the lush green grass. Eyes glazed over as they await a god that will never offer to hold the door open for them as they try to push a baby carriage through doors that don’t magically open like at Walmart.

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Modern Age Billboard eyes. Hip shaking earnest hope. Holding on to the undersides of satellites. Hold fast, grip tight. Dream of pine trees, dream of pitch black earth, dream of a long lost home beneath the hundreds of feet of skyscrapers and smokestacks. Cement and metal. It’s under there somewhere.

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The Gold Locket She has a locket of her wonderful late husband around her neck. The husband who yelled at her over the smallest disagreement. The one who kicked the dog, who she loved so much, in the stomach whenever the mood struck. Now he and the dog are gone, hovering in a warm glow through her dreams more and more every day. They’re all happy. No one is yelling, no one is kicking or being kicked. He finally appreciates her time as much as she appreciated his. This is her late dear husband in the gold locket around her neck.

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Now What? Held together with scotch tape, all ramshackle laughter and tacky anguish. Underemployed selfish, minimum wage blues rambling out of every pore. A college degree tacked on the wall, next to posters that probably hold as much (or more) significance. Uncertainty heavy on my shoulders, arms heavy copper with a little current jumping back and forth.

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Shores White orbs hang from metal stems, lighting uneven concrete. Wheels rush under my toes. Symmetrical sparkling dark green blurs. Concrete and the imitation silver-sprayed chain link surrounding one story homes. Windows glow yellow and flat screen TVs flash baseball and “reality.� Big trucks with American flag decals are parked out front. Crushed beer can broken pint glass mixed with dead grass along the expressway sound wall.

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Memories of a Meat Clerk Two breaks and a lunch means a full hour in the small man-made field. The one separating the cheap condominiums from the strip mall, tall grass reaching up past the ankles. The sun weighs heavy red on the back of my neck, collar rubbing ever so slightly with any movement. Orange rind under my fingernails, soggy salami sandwich lining my gums. I try to swish some of my Sunkist to break up the remaining sandwich but I always seem to miss some. I should bring mouthwash next time (I never will). I watch ants move in frenzied motion between brown-green pillars as the minutes float by. When the alarm on my phone sounds out I’ll be back in my hair net and blood red apron, goose bumps dotting my arms, wishing I was anywhere else.

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Deadlocked Faces locked into routine flash through 70 mph windshields. People you see everyday and never even get to say hello to. You might have seen the guy with the obvious comb over watering his hydrangeas, cursing his co-workers under his breath. Or the older lady who always seems to smear lipstick on her teeth. The one who is always forgetting to turn off all her lights, but finds time to feed all the stray cats in the neighborhood. All tethered to ritual and procedure, co-existing without much else.

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Tiny Despot He’s always pulling petals off of Ms. Jennings’s flowers (bright blues! bright pinks! bright yellows!) mashing them into the coarse gray walkway. All plaque toothed grin and antagonism, endlessly putting M-80s in mailboxes. Spiders in your slippers. Crazy glue on your scissors. Pulling legs off of rolly pollies as they try to curl up for safety. His name will appear at the top of all official company memos from now on.

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Cubical Living Hive dwelling critters fly by singing caffeinated love songs that resonate like Gregorian chants about a sad, tangible existence of work and purpose. A fleeting lifespan of short happy moments encased in droning monotony. "And remember next Friday is ‘Hawaiian Shirt Day.’ So if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.”

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Easton Trains stopped running. Grass grew up tall, the color of straw, through the pavement. The factories used to make shiny brass door hinges. Easton: The roaring door hinge mecca of the Midwest. I used to get home by six. Her yellow dress swaying in the breeze. The mecca turned into a ghost town. Factories moved, boarding up one by one. Cancer ripped through her lungs with its dumb looking yellow teeth. Teeth like butter knives. Applying slow, unrelenting pressure sinking deeper. Blood stains absorbed in the floorboards. She tried so hard to get them out the first few times. Soon she grew too tired to care about them much. She wanted her body to feed those plants she tended to with meticulous detail for

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hours on end. I go back sometimes. No one else does. I do my best to maintain the garden, to cut away the tall grass. Doing everything she used to do. She made a list. Her handwriting was always so goddamn hard to read, but I follow it as closely as I can. I bring a sleeping bag and a small suitcase. I sleep in the abandoned house, chasing the rodents out with a pellet gun. I’m 73 now. She died nearly 20 years ago. My knees are getting more unsure, vision blurrier, dreams getting stranger (MUCH stranger). Love is rarely rational, the only tangible intangible I can say exists. There are no pearly gates to welcome me. Just some space she has allowed me next to her beneath the flower bed.

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Memorial Cemetery flowers turn to mush under waterlogged crosses. Prayer candles lose their spark and liquor bottles overfill. Soaked blades of grass glisten under a sliver of sunlight. Kids play tag behind headstones while the older folks sob softly into their sleeves.

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Rusted Fenders that are far away from home wait on the side of the expressway for someone to take them. Cracked/scratched plastic, bolted back like nothing had happened. Back to the warm embrace of the humming engine. When they were leading the way down the side streets and expressways of America like they used to.

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A Portable Model of How Memory Works Old photographs tear and fall apart. Moss grows over the cheap headstone that the whole family pitched in for, but forgot to maintain. The preacher’s words that float and dissipate into the air, trying to patch things up as best they can. Hallmark cards commemorating holidays you never cared for are lost and gone forever in a filing cabinet in the basement. When we grow too old to remember those times in life when we felt complete and happy, without the a cynical thought dreamed up under the nurse’s watch and beeping machinery. Love is the only constant, however latent or misplaced it may be.

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Sleeping is the Hardest Part Knots in her hands. Fingers mangled into odd directions that fingers don’t normally go in. Years of typing clack, clack, clack echoing out through her subconscious. Flashbacks to supervisors that would say things that made her uncomfortable and do things that made her uncomfortable. Painted face, painted nails. Feet smashed and elevated. Discomfort for appealing contours to the people who matter. The ones who write out her paycheck. She doesn’t sleep as easy in retirement even knowing that fat fuck Bob’s arteries closed up as he was stuffing his face with grease encased burgers and fries. Maybe it was the milkshake. Whatever the reason, she was never happier to see a corpse and yet undead Bob still wanders about, floating through dreams. Still trying to make passes at her. All of her life is molded into routine. Falling out of the routine means 23


Bob shows up more. Breakfast, walk, bridge, lunch, old movies, dinner sleep. Sleep is always the hardest part.

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1492 As the horizon bends inward, the yellows and oranges stitching together with the western front, the trees mumble about how their relatives used to own all this “property.” Kind of like those older people who talk about the “good ol’ days” to grandkids who are just listening for a few extra bucks, keeping them quiet for the next couple of months.

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Isolated Communities The tangible unknown is shrinking more and more by the split second. Every lost sacred place getting a gift shop and a Walmart within walking distance. Critters miles below the Earth’s surface getting their own reality show, odd isolated features into sculpted plastic, making them look years younger. I don’t really watch it, but I know a lot of people who do. Anyway, we need to create new frontiers. Impatient mouse clicks replacing hoof beats echoing out across the frontier. We need distraction. If we don’t we’ll have to learn how to grow content with what we have.

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Folding It’s weird when you take all the clothes out of your drawers, fold them and find out they don’t fit quite right. The chaos of wadded up t-shirts and blue jeans had an order all its own. Trying to sort it out only made it worse.

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The Side of the Interstate Those places where some artificial forest is created between the concrete walls of road ways. A replica of what was everywhere at one time. Trophies stuffed and mounted on the wall. Accenting neon haze and billboard grandstanding that appears front and center. Big bright empty love rambling on about Burger King and hotels from sea to shining sea.

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College Prune-like toes move around in a damp sock. Soles water logged, snot flowing like a broken faucet. No phone and a lack of good sleep, armed with boring literature to fill eight hours time. My head keeps nodding forward and my eyes close as I hear laughter all around. I take walks around the campus, adding to the collection of rain water in my shoes. Brown paper towel from the bathroom scrapes the skin off my nose. An attractive women sells me a Marxist-Leninist paper for 50 cents. I sit in class from 4:30-5:50, barely able to take notes. 10 hours later I can finally drive home.

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A Microscopic Victory Salt gathered on my windshield today in protest. The ground down salt granules were protesting against being forced to melt snow. Holding up microscopic picket signs. "Hell no, we won’t melt snow." They knew the regime could at any moment cue the dreaded “windshield wiper fluid of doom,” dissolving their protest right then and there. But they held strong and awaited the oppressive Ford Contour regime to take action. But a miracle occurred. The fluid was blocked by ice that had accumulated from the extreme weather. It was a microscopic victory that day for the salt opposition. It was also a day where a very tired motorist careened across the clogged lanes of I-94 to his potential death.

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Commonwealth Horse tooth laughter jumps and cuts through white smoke, flowing through perfectly sculpted nostrils. I feel the vibrations of dance music shaking my pant legs. Sweat forms between my hand and my glass under glances through designer frames. I feel like the first car that stopped in a traffic jam.

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Fumbling for the Reset Button My black eye still pounded against the sound of rain trickling down tree branches and gutters. The rain formed a muted metal hiss that would’ve sounded nice to the right jazz record. The previous night was remembered piece by piece like a puzzle commemorating some universally despised moment in the human experience. I wanted to set the puzzle aside for a bit. I wanted to go back to sleep and continue my game of Stratego with purple giraffes.

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Getting It Wrong I spoke in off-key pop songs played through laptop speakers. All tinny and off-putting. They sounded like magnificent symphonies, at least to me, as I was saying them. You finished your beer and I closed the screen door behind me. Alone, hand in hand with the thick December air.

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Half Awake Happy I fell asleep under a warm electric cocoon. I woke up in a puddle of sweat completely relaxed and disoriented. Still clinging tight to things that never were and probably never will be. Holding back reality As it comes rushing back through dilating pupils. The mass of haze growing sharper, and less forgiving.

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Tree I remember sitting on a bulldozer with you, listening to water bubble up against a plastic bong. Staring at the sky lumbering pale moon, bright stars in the cool August breeze. Glassy-eyed granite in my throat, complete. I try to hold onto that moment a bit too tight when I miss you.

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Snow G-d It was 3 a.m. The snow was up to the door with a texture like sugar when it bunched up against the plastic shovel. Tiny flakes floated down, taking as much time as they needed. Everything was quiet, everything contained a certain amount of peace under the hum of streetlights. Soon the neighborhood will be alive under dull orange haze, coffee grounds at the bottom of porcelain. Machines heaving snow into neat little piles on the sides of driveways. Cars fishtailing off into the distance, snow the color of Coca Cola.

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Fair Cheap amber colored beer wakes up and relaxes thoughts. I’m confident and annoying, in a tent filled with stumbling people, most of them middle aged, some I went to high school with. I met you and we lost what little cash I had in the gambling tent, sneaking beer from other people’s pitchers. You put your number in my phone and I left, waking up the next morning happy.

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From Richmond to San Diego The women working at the gas station with thinning hair and a smile that stretches from Richmond to San Diego always calls me “hun” in a way that makes my insides tingle and melt together. Things get stranger when you’re alone long enough, to the point where things like this have a large impact. I try to imagine that she had made some mundane invention that blurs into the flurry of our everyday routine. While the invention gets lost it’s still essential to the process. Without it we would be lost. Opportunistic people tend to be ready to fleece anyone with the slightest twinkle in their eye. The gas station attendant’s best friend stole the idea. Her friend ran off with the idea and stole all of the happiness that the gas station attendant had stayed up at night dreaming about. She’s stuck working at the corner Shell that changed from a Marathon to a BP

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and back to a Shell again. The only thing she can do is make the best of it. She knows she invented that one thing and is content in that. The only thing she can do is smile at the thought of the people who come in the gas station everyday using her invention.

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Could’ve Been Worse Pumped through frozen concrete veins, the interstate moves like a city sidewalk. My metal behemoth slowly advancing, delicate on gentle powder, 30-40 mph. Every passed car an avoided collision, every glaring tail light an invitation to tap the breaks a bit. White knuckles grip a wheel, subtly guiding toward home.

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I Like Ike The wrinkled pink fleshed ladies on the other side of the room. The ones with red lipstick smeared across puckered scolding lips, talk about a time where everything was idealized and sterile. Neat and simple, shiny wood laminate and linoleum. Perfectly maintained leafy green. Cackling and hacking, glaring and pitying everyone who isn’t them.

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Aloe Limbs Beat red skin thudded deep. As if trumpets sounded from every pore. All sensation and no subtlety. Sand scratched and bugs crawled. Everything has a bluish tint to it. My thoughts evaporated away in the sweltering June heat. My arms and legs ate every last table scrap. Let my skin and bones disappear with the breeze.

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The People down the Street They threw out racial slurs like confetti after they announced the war was ending. Camo trucker hats against a Confederate Flag softly billowing in the breeze. I’m sure they don’t really hate black people. I’m sure when they go to the supermarket and have a black cashier they’re just as polite as anyone. But they still make me uncomfortable either way.

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Vodka My vision’s a bit blurry. I just had a few drinks. I only had to return a shirt today. Only thing on the agenda. The ache was still there. The hollow illogical one. Their eyes told me to move past it even if they said take all the time you need. Just move past it Pam. The fuck do they know. So I drank a bit (well four). Just a little (maybe more). Just needed to return shirt. A shirt, sorry. The cashier gave a pitying look. I saw it. I knew the alcohol lingered heavy on every word. I might’ve yelled a bit, sure. Might’ve slurred my words slightly, sure.

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But I told that pretentious kid what was what. Just needed to return a goddamn shirt is all. Told the girl with that thing in her nose and that bratty kid manager too. Just needed a different size that’s all.

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A New American Dream In the college library a man talks about his successes in the banquet hall industry. His attentive audience is comprised of two chipper college girls with a lot of makeup. “Third in charge” their personal orator brags in slightly broken English. Over and over, emphasizing his place near the top. You can see the interest forced across the features of both girls, straining to care about the silverware and liquor he commandeers from the bar. They offer up questions to keep things moving: “What was that like?” or “That sounds interesting.” On an 11 dollar an hour paycheck he helps to create extravagant meals that middle class families can barely afford. Most of the food perishes by the end of the night, bus boys stowing away the scraps for dinner. When he goes home he watches Jay-Z videos. He pastes his face over Jay-Z’s, surrounded by women with magazine features and champagne. He dreams about this in his one room apartment, with nothing but the persistent sounds of the alcoholic below him breaking furniture.

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Shape Chest heaving dry tongue mucus filled mouth. Heaving. In through the nose out threw the mouth. Or is it the other way around? Arms should be relaxed and moving in tandem. Strides should be open, loose, relaxed. Don’t tense up. Move away the clutter in your head. Run.

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Seasons Change/Thoughts Submerge the Same Is it all right if I don’t feel bad anymore? Falling gently into depths of sleep I haven’t felt in years, guilt rolling off my slouched shoulders. Where the whispered folk twang of Iron and Wine doesn’t send shivers up my spine. Can I only think of the good times when I think of you? The ones where we were lost in one another, stoned in a sea of blankets and yellow lamp light, soft glow of the TV, eerie quiet of suburbia above us. Is it all right if I was a jackass?

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Breakfast Anytime The blue sweat pants still fit although the pizza grease stains never really disappeared. Whiskey shakes nicotine-covered knuckles. I talk about things with the waitresses that happened years ago. The old projector hums and clicks, some dust jumps up and settles. Mustangs peel out as an orange glow hangs over everyone. They all seem happy, I had more teeth then and more to talk about.

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Metropolitan Smoke hisses out of sewer caps. The streets all well-lit empty mirrors reflecting times that receded much too soon. Footsteps echo out, reverberating a bit. Lonely shakes its way from my bones, rattling on down streets that don’t dream quite as much as they once did.

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Cagey On harder days worn away and drifting thoughts gnaw at newer ones. Hungry; starved. Still running in circles, stuck in some weird limbo. Let them wear themselves out. Let yourself be happy instead of fucking everything up for a change. Sleep it off.

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Epitaph Smudgy ink coats wrinkling fingers, stretching out pages that crinkle through Sunday morning calm. Coffee ring covered and recycling bin bound. Yesterday's news will soon be yesterday's news, cluttering up antique shops and museums. Yellowing and dust covered, far away from the front porches they once landed on.

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Astro Traveling Traveling through the cosmos with not much need to come back. No vacation days, hurried excuses, or wasted sick days. Adios. feet still planted like roots. Clinging deep to the Earth, watching from below. No one really cares, half-amused and losing interest quick. I’m better for it now. My hand in yours as we move farther away with each passing moment. Goodbye.

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Wrong Book The hands on the clock don't care much, they just move. The lines in your face deepen and your skin goes loose. Praying a bit more, getting ready for the end or a beginning. Outlined in gold, endlessly high-fiving a wise-looking bearded dude in the clouds. Everything getting dimmer until it goes completely dark. Waking up in front of some ancient g-d, worshiped by a cult that never really caught on in their heyday. The right words weren't spoken when they laid your bones to rest, you didn't read the right books, you didn't even learn the right language. All those hours hunched over in worship could've been spent

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with your family or really doing anything else, (including reading up on obscure religious cults). Life's too short to worry too much about this stuff.

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About

Nicholas Arthur is 24 years old and currently lives in one of the many lake towns in Michigan. He is a Wayne State University graduate. Along with poetry he dabbles in music, writing and art. When he is not writing he can be found looking in the bargain bin at the record store, drinking coffee far too late at night, and eating breakfast any time he pleases. He has a cat named Simba. 58


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