Most discussed stories

The Shirley School of Customer Service

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Hi. I'm Shirley. I'm not here to help you. You might think because I wear this ticky-tack name badge that I'm your servant. But I'm not. I'm here at K-mart because my grandson said I need to get out of the house. I wish he'd get out of my house. Here are some survival tips…

public apology (or, why most people hate monks)

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I want separate twilight a room with no candles, plates, phones or music a glass ceiling to smash when my head's full I want tiny hand-

Vain Boasts and Confessions in Descending Mode

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My, but how that girl loved to defenestrate! I shall ever be grateful for my obstinacy with never living more than a single story above ground level.

Shluha Vokzal'naja (Train Station Whore)

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In my room is my младенец, I mean my little one. She is hungry, Sucking dry air. My молоко, that Says milk, is not good. I can’t make.

This Story is Terrible, and I Only Wrote It to Annoy You People

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[DON'T OPEN 'TIL X-MAS!]

All These Poets

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All these poets with their hands Full of poems are driving Me into the wheat fields like A flock of crows. They offer You a cigarette and light The damn thing with a poem. They give you a little dance, But when they take off…

16 Rules to help you become a Writer

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Get comfortable with criticism

Tundra

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All the lights of Rekyjavik...

Birds of Prayer: Memoir

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“Is that what six million looks like?” I wondered. I easily grasped the six part. I'd lived that many years. The Star of David had six points. So did each snow crystal.

North from Laguna Beach

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I was Orson Welles skulking in the shadows and you Alida Valli; our time measured like footsteps advancing on Gethsemane.

Silly Old Man Acting the Young Fool

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The green on your shoulder Is worth all their papery property taxes And then some. They cash in every friendship As if it were nothing more than a Ripened apple for pie. Get rid of The thing before it begins to Rot into some…

Sax Named Pegasus

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I was just sitting in the corner, stirring my stories with a straw that sucked characters out of bars.

Modern Teleology

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little curly moustaches

Autumn apocalypse

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Beneath maples, oaks, and birches/an autumn apocalypse empties unruly brightness

TRAUMA

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Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

Thieves, a Fire, and Some Pretty Nice Ghosts

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All along scared of the lovesickness finding me. I'm not proud of sending that sweet choir on its way without a kind word chopped into its begging cup. Who cares? I'm scared. The problem is this house; it's sad. I notice when someone floats…

Fireflies Flew Out of the Slice of Life

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In the beginning there was salt God licked the salt and said it was Good. Then there was Light Then Chocolate The rest is just History It’s no great Mystery Oh, and Fireflies Fireflies with Due Dates Flew out of the Slice of Life S

Suspicious Activity

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I go down to pick up R and get a cartridge of black ink for the printer. It's an extremely pleasant summer day — early afternoon — and the air is exemplary: clear and sweet. So far so good. But as soon as I park and go to a nearby cash machine the fun begins.…

The Summer Of My Beautiful Idiocy

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In the summer of '68 my father persuaded me to go visit my grandparents on their farm in North Dakota. I had long hair and dressed like a French symbolist outlaw. Took the train to Minot, spent the night in a hotel (watching Your Cheatin' Heart, movie about Hank…

Fire Skates

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Fire skates ascended out of the Skyscraper State _________________.

My Worst Nightmare

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BUTTERFLY, A NOVEL’s monologue:

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Many of you may think I can't talk but I do, excessively so and all jaws. I wonder if that's the reason I get burnt sometimes. And yes, I too have a life, hear me.I was born on a rainy day somewhere in Asia, when a stranger bought me on the antique Bird & Flower Market…

If "1984" Had A More Upbeat Ending.....

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Momentarily Winston’s thoughts muddled again. He felt his fingers twitch, a physical sensation which seemed to accompany any recollection from the past. Most of his memories were moments he’d reiterated so many times during his stay in the Ministry of Lov

durations of flamenco

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thus is life conjured with music: human life / with human music human souls human earth, / hot souls the cherished fruit of the hot earth beneath.

Good Luck Sailor

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On a ship twice run aground a sailor cranked a rope round a spool bigger than his head. He could see overboard and also the strip of deck on which he walked down to get to the crank. What he noticed most, as always, were the green echoes in the sea foam against…

Where's My Phreakin' Nobel Prize in Physics?

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Where I went to college, you couldn’t swing a dead cat in a physics lab without hitting a Nobel laureate. I know–we tried. They finally made us stop–it wasn’t fair to the cat.

How Was Your Afternoon, Dear? 2

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The pool deck was covered with the bloody footprints of resident gawkers.

I Made You . . . (April Fool's Day Challenge)

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You cheat with a stripper--joke I told to your wife. I didn't know that she couldn't take a goof.

Marry Me

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My mother told me never to trust girls who speak from the side of their mouths. But Kat, with her rainbow bracelets and flat vans, can't speak any other way. A creature of A.D.D. and zip up leather, studded belt and the next No Wave, has mistaken me for the last…

How to pick up women.

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The easiest and most legal way to pick up a woman is to take a single, writer friend with you to a bar. While there, look for the woman you are interested in. Her? Are you sure? Okay then. Next, tell your writer friend that the woman keeps looking at him when he's…