Most discussed stories

Manic Episode

884884 views88 comments99 favs

The manic,/ looking on, finds and polishes// the sharp green shard and bottle cap

The Blocked Toxin

10671067 views88 comments22 favs

Listen to chickadees. Join / LinkedIn.

Breadfruit

12391239 views88 comments44 favs

... we both know how we go to fresh air like fish, gasping.

Explaining To A Dog

11391139 views88 comments66 favs

My wife tells me/your dog has vomited/ on the carpet AGAIN!

Sensitivity Workshop

11731173 views88 comments55 favs

Inspired by my last writers' workshop, where encouragement is key.

Clotting

14481448 views88 comments66 favs

Train travel is listed as a possible cause for deep vein thrombosis, a condition that causes blood to clot in the legs. Ray did not tell me this, but I looked it up later, remembered the disability status on his Charlie Card.Baclofen is not used for the treatment of…

A Quandry

11761176 views88 comments55 favs

On the river he rows a dory. It is filling with water. There is a rectangular hole in the bottom.

Jimbo’s Wish

549549 views88 comments55 favs

growing up fumbling for excuses your fingers, clumsy littlepads of flesh you don't recognize a scatter plot of acnethat won't erase by mirrorwhy this scene doesn't workkissing the detachable lips of bobby-soxed methodgirlswho keep…

Aguilas Range

12041204 views88 comments44 favs

When I was thirteen and still lived in the desert I saw a ghost woman at the top of a dry waterfall in the foothills.

The Burning Gulf

15361536 views88 comments44 favs

None of us ever thought this would happen.

Wheelbarrow

10931093 views88 comments44 favs

He was ready for the rub. Tense. She could always tell. The legs, the shuffles. He had to be frantic before he would come to her, his own wife. Vanity, fright. She could read him like a book open on the table, turn his pages the way a fish flakes. "It's comfort night,…

Vitamin D

11141114 views88 comments88 favs

I caught her a-feasting with her eyes and smilin' at that Jesus- haired Waffle House cook, Dennis Roy, again and I said, “Merlene, my tiny kitty-kat, they's no reason to carry no torch for him ‘cause he may not be with us very long ‘cause, if you notice, they's no…

A World of Possible Flowers

12081208 views88 comments77 favs

"There are many dark places;but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."--J.R.R. Tolkien If the love never came you must have been Dragging your feet. If the hatred carved your…

The Jumpers' Pool

14751475 views88 comments55 favs

The way that worked was you gave the bartender a buck, and he would write your name on a square on a calendar that was behind the bar. If somebody jumped off the bridge that day, you won the pot.

The Writing Class

976976 views88 comments77 favs

I ask if anyone has a poem or a story they would like to read. Everybody's hand shoots up.

The Sorry March to the Even Sorrier Sea

10711071 views88 comments33 favs

goes on and on. Like it's a sad mad season on Mars, well it isn't, is it? Sometimes I have towonder whatever happenedto us, to make us forget how well we already know how tosing as good as any larks do? I have never wantedto drown, but I've…

Polly

20382038 views88 comments66 favs

I taught Polly to turn on a flashlight with his nose. It became his favorite occupation and he'd sit for hours with the light between his paws, watching the things it lit—sometimes jumping up to lick the wall. He'd shine it on our daughter's…

Present Tense

11201120 views88 comments55 favs

What fascinates me now is now, this instant, this moment. This fugitive, this delinquent, this indiscreet, this forever elusive now. Now now. Now is now and now it is not now. Now is the adversary of time.…

The Form of a Cyclist

941941 views88 comments44 favs

His legs were pedaling hard and his heart was beating fast, He's got his scars; He can't outrun his past, Down the hill he goes, wind whipped his hair, a new style with each draft. He broke his brakes long ago; He cut the cable and ripped off the pads. He cried…

What I'd Like to Say is That Something Special

12531253 views88 comments88 favs

that doesn't need any words to arrive fully formed, or too many words to be believed in at all I should say, a little something we can simply send back and forth across your time and my space without having to talk at length about it, but being a …

Pieces of the poet

981981 views88 comments22 favs

This is the poem you leave behind that you die in the middle of.

M+3

11531153 views88 comments55 favs

In the diffuse light of early morning you wear a sweat suit maybe and stand in front of a model-kitchen counter in a model-home kitchen

before Creation

10731073 views88 comments66 favs

Before Genesis, digesting the primordial soup.

The Master of the Air

949949 views88 comments44 favs

He thought of it as magic, but magic that he understood, the way a magician knows about the hidden compartments in his hat and trunks.

Zin Is Not a True Vegetarian

914914 views88 comments66 favs

She wakes up lip-syncing the remnants of a dream: the throb of cherry blossoms, the whine of lotus flowers.

Rain Turtle

28832883 views88 comments44 favs

The first thing Vera did after her dismissal from the mortuary was buy a pack of cigarettes.

Ah, You’re Funny. Good Thing

11711171 views88 comments33 favs

I was talking to this famous female artist at the reception, (as if I knew anything,) “If you want to be taken as a serious artist now, you have to have one long serious eyebrow.” There was no reaction. So, I said: “Also, you should kn

Ordinary Fruit

921921 views88 comments88 favs

I was insufficiently abused as a child.

War ; a fragment

858858 views88 comments44 favs

Lela, my grandmother.

Staying With Mattie

964964 views88 comments88 favs

I invited Henry to go out with me and Marge, suggesting he ask Ellen who he dated a while back and who still asked about him, but Henry shook his head “no” and said “out things” were just too boring at our ages — and besides, since his…