Most discussed stories

Out of sync

12541254 views1010 comments11 fav

I've been floating dearadriftI could not see you clearlythrough the tattered, hazy scrim the boundary between usmight as well have been a canyonyou reached for me anda vice tightenedaround my headI wanted to merge with youmy heart wished for abrilliant explosion of limb…

Meanwhile

18961896 views1010 comments66 favs

I saw/ star shine in/ my silver pail

Who you are

21882188 views1010 comments88 favs

a mid-life crisis in 55 words

Museum of Everything

18341834 views1010 comments99 favs

It is the monad.

When You Don't Believe

19351935 views1010 comments11 fav

I told you that I have homicidal urges that alternate with ones of the suicidal kind. You flicked an imaginary speck of dust from your fat, fleshy forefinger with your ultra-flexible, wimpy thumb.

SNOW ANGEL

17211721 views1010 comments44 favs

I do this when I think of you. Today we took the first steps towards you're never here.

Chicken Noodle

16761676 views1010 comments88 favs

Damn this airplane

Love Me Like It's Midnight

16741674 views1010 comments77 favs

We are young That’s all we’ve got We take drugs We smoke pot You got mugged And I got shot We are young That’s all we’ve got I want you to love me like it’s midnight Midnight, midnight Yeah, your mama wants you home But she knows

THE GRANDMOTHER OCCUPIES

17301730 views1010 comments77 favs

In her blanched beauty, seated in a silver deck chair, with complacent socialist ways

Don't Forget the Sun

24762476 views1010 comments55 favs

That’s when the inconspicuous-until-now janitor saunters over, glances down at their starlist and mumbles, “Don’t forget the sun,” and the astronomers all slap their foreheads and smile.

The Taste of Coins from Treasure Troves

42574257 views1010 comments55 favs

I hold a key to feel its pull, and follow where it leads. Once, because the moment, key, and direction felt so right, I ended up on the streets naked. A police officer threatened me with handcuffs. I laughed, mesmerized by the cuff's clink, their never-ending circles,…

Rear View

19581958 views1010 comments1111 favs

The man of a thousand faces was defunct.

Marriage

18031803 views1010 comments1212 favs

A cult is one thing; it defies common sense that a commonly educated person cannot escape cultist thinking and belonging. That cult, A.A., is girded by police, fire, therapy, hospitals, insurance companies, and courts.

Karmic Tide

17771777 views1010 comments44 favs

Digging in another garden, jumping into another space and time, I impaled a toad on the tines of a garden fork. At first I thought the toad was a clump of clay, stuck to the thick tine, but before I could kick the clay off with my…

Pretending Veracity, History Winks

17861786 views1010 comments99 favs

Mosaics are a trick of the eye, seeming

A Next Step

15721572 views1010 comments88 favs

The first night I met her we slow danced to George Strait songs for most of the evening and when we took a break, our talking went warm and well as we sat eating hot dogs and sipping beers until she dropped a couple of bombs, first, telling me she was married and then, that…

1888: Mrs. Sherwood

16361636 views1010 comments99 favs

Margaret will take her seven away from his raging Irish hammers slurry Saturday night honks smashing red eyes. They'll board a secret train countryside bound where they sing the songs of her own dead Mam who lived poor in the world but…

The Cougar

27382738 views1010 comments33 favs

Johnny puts another whiskey in front of me. Except for him, me, and Petey, the bar's empty. "You hear about that up in Wilmette?" he asks."No, what?" I say."A cougar. People say they saw a cougar.""Bullshit.""No shit. Was in the Sun Times this morning.""Sun Times ain't…

Super Collider

20412041 views1010 comments22 favs

I never pulled it off, never rode an atom through a super collider with a nose full of cocaine and a drink in my hand. Never was a bullet, zooming through the city, skin pressed to bone, nerves on fire. Never was an atom bomb, ever-exploding in slow motion, ripping off…

SNOWSTORM

16481648 views1010 comments66 favs

long lines, short words

Opening Your Fiery Eyes

17231723 views1010 comments55 favs

as I imagine only you canyou're the ocean on fire before anyone else hasbroken that ancient seal, or simply taken the first icy plunge.You can eatall the bitterfruit there is, but that stilldoesn't make theworld a more hatefulplace. Only people…

Things That Glow

19571957 views1010 comments99 favs

The tiny green light flashing in the lawn of an apartment building one night that caught Roberta’s attention while we were walking home from Café Vita.

Athena 2.0

28862886 views1010 comments99 favs

The story goes that the night before I was born my dad had a terrible headache.

Rock, Roll, et al.

15721572 views1010 comments55 favs

She looks for the obit, can't find. Over and over, looks. Nothing. Nothing except something touching her shoulder. Follow me. Corridors, doors, along and along, no time to notice that this last is the stage door — she was so suddenly there in the blare and…

Delayed Sentence (55 Word Story)

38943894 views1010 comments1010 favs

The river waited for her patiently.

It's A Different World When You Walk With A Cane

22202220 views1010 comments77 favs

People do want to be kind. It's just that sometimes they need a little push (or, in a few cases, a big fat shove) in the right direction.

Homing Pigeons

21392139 views1010 comments99 favs

Sometimes, they beat their masters home...

Charlie's Travels

14651465 views1010 comments77 favs

Charlie Hancock missed the bus. Started walking.

Security

18461846 views1010 comments11 fav

Her preferred post-coital activity is to pant, to suck in air with urgent greed.

Bad Luck and Trouble

20182018 views1010 comments33 favs

Jake goes back inside, turns on the TV, and sits down. It is the end of the world! A lane of the Bay Bridge has fallen into the bay. A building downtown has lost its skin.