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Tracey Boone Swan

The phone was ringing and I waited for it to stop.

We Built This City on terrible songs.

Time to get your hands dirty, you say.

Your girlfriend’s been in an accident, they said on the phone.

To read a poem or see a painting or listen to music which speaks to me, which breaks me open for a moment.

He leaned in to kiss her. She turned away from him, this stranger.

Unearthing the self-love I buried so deeply.

Your writing meets glossy print & digital.

My parents dining alone when they meant to dine together.

She sees a warrior queen who hadn’t aged so much as she had blossomed.

Stacks of new writing.

He started to tell me about his life.

You should do what you want to do, what you think is the right thing to do.

Being the perfect mother isn’t all that hard.

You’re a star in the making. Feel good?

Yoshihiro Hattori knocked on the wrong door.

All the while my panic rises with the water.

Delilah discovered this wine that’s only 14 bucks a bottle and pretty damn good.

Had they known about her truth, her story all along?

No-one could have saved Dad.

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I waited for Kevin on his front porch.

We come to the big city Denver, big protest rally.

When he got off work and went out to the parking lot it was wet and quiet and cool. The hard freezing rain had made the parking lot shine.

I think you’ll want to be there.

You make me want to sing.

She’s not a monster.

She considered herself a lover of words and of reading. But these books, these words, were so dry, so representative of hours wasted.

The flickering lights of life unfold .

These days I’m just happy to be playing. Just enjoying myself.

I am the red parrot fish you watch in the Chinese take-out joint while you wait for your cheap dinner.

There is no such thing as lunar panels.

Hell, the universe expands until it dies. Why not me?

Everything, she thought, is an accident of where you are.

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To those who go on incomplete, carrying yesterday in trembling hands.

What were you thinking about so hard?

Blink, blink: I love you. Blinkity-blink: I am your Sweetheart.

Leore worried about time.

I wanted the perfect wedding.

It's no longer His Fault.

I’d finally seen a painting about the world I lived in.

This is a hurting game.

Dandelions gently floating through the air, turning into stars.

My sister wants to go to an American university. If she can go, I will play.

She’ll be crying about her mama, saying she’s gone and do I remember when we were kids?

Pick the ending you want.

The flowers waving.

This was the hellishly hot week I was let go.

I can’t remember if we could go home.

We ought to communicate.

SHHH

Let me raise a glass of bubbly to going bankrupt and living solo.

I was a daddy’s girl.

Katherine reminded me that I was still worthy of love and respect.

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An old woman on the bus is knitting something enormous.

That day was a deep green dream that I hold tight.

I cannot open myself.txt

I’m here to pick up the painting.

My father tells my abuelo he’ll leave the island and never come back.

Do you value your phone more highly than your life?

What’ll I do? Guess I’ll travel some.

The circle breaks—scooting back, we open a space for her.

I really want to hug you, but I won’t. But I want you to know that I want to.

Se me está agotando el tiempo.

It felt like Red Square.

We wasn’t doin nothin, just shootin hoops on the roof.

Bukowski said that there was everything and nothing.

Surface tension, that’s what it is.

I am (wo)man.

Ferryman, ferryman, I paid your heavy fee.

What happened in the woods?

He could forgive the sins of everybody, especially President Nixon.

There is a story here. Perhaps just not the one you’re looking for.

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Most of my classmates are taking science courses. Me, I prefer Shakespeare.

But we keep going, right?

Nobody had jobs for him today, except someone who wanted him to rob a bank.

What happened to you, man? What happened to that passion?

I want to be like you. Another shot. Why don’t you love me? Shot.

Yeah, but Mercy, he lives on the other side of the ocean.

My mother has been missing for nine days now. Not dead, but missing.

So a baby now?

Making sand castles.

I don’t have to be on that bus, I thought, sitting down at a cafe. I can drop the whole thing, slam cappuccinos till happy hour, then get smashed at a bar.

Here we go again.

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You're inhumane!

In times like these men turn to desperate measures. Can you blame them?

We took spins around town.

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She wondered what it would be like to live on an island.