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The Girl with the Sensitive Nose Don't wanna eat, mom (big enamel kettle on a corner of the stove) don't wanna eat, mom (rice and beans, thick macaroni) don't wanna eat, mom (no tomato sauce) don't wanna eat, mom (tastes likesawdust) don't wanna eat, mom (that smell of acetylene gas) don't wanna eat (saw a cat on the way home, teeming with fleas) don't wanna eat, mom (when we get electric lights and dad gives up on the gas lantern, that's when I'll eat). Let's leave it dark, mom. Use the kerosene lamp, not the gas, please—the blue part smells, it seeps into your skin, in the food, in your thoughts, takes the shapes of things. It's like when you get mad, mom, so mad you can't yell, that's how bad the gas is, the blue part. I'm gonna throw up, mom. Don't wanna eat now. I'll wait for the electricity. I? ...

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