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After seventeen years we’re parting ways. Breakups hurt, even this one.

She pictures her suitcase covered in blood, wishing for anything to happen.

Any white man without a servant was presumed to be in need of help.

Crescencia knew that it was a sin to be in love with a married man.

When the thugs from the bank showed, up my father laughed.

“We must also buy twenty acres or so. Life is becoming impossible.”

As soon as I heard his voice, I felt as if a wind had swept through my head.

Protect your hands. You can always get by if your hands aren’t broken.

Oh, how did people do it? How did they find some way to be happy?

To get the job, always stay starched, creased to death.

The ashes of a human being are not ash. The body burns into wood.

Daofu was a cluster of lights bubbling up in the belly of a darkened plain.

They believed that the American movie should be taken seriously.

“You could come, too! No one’s forcing you to go to fucking China.”

Don’t start conversations or attract attention. Don’t be suspicious.

It was as if we were shedding our very selves to become someone else.

Jayne Anne Phillips recalls her friend, the legendary Sam Lawrence.

Sam was like family. He was the angel of my writing life in every word.

If he wanted to kiss Sophie tonight, he probably shouldn’t steal from her.

Each Kardashian is completely capable of being alone at night.

The irreversible ink stain breaking the face of whatever we skate on.

I became a realist the moment they tied a brick to my balls.

After her divorce she took up with a cowboy named Wicks.

The talk was heady, but the conversations were dead-ends.

My first girl, only sixteen year and she go, she run away to you.

We lived below the poverty level. I wasn’t allowed to desire objects.

The white geometry of caulk between bathroom tiles—I’m held in place.

she had big eyes, the better to see right through a person.

Abe shot himself, first year out of high school. Assholes said he was queer.