Most discussed stories

16 Rules to help you become a Writer

11351135 views77 comments66 favs

Get comfortable with criticism

Tundra

683683 views77 comments55 favs

All the lights of Rekyjavik...

Birds of Prayer: Memoir

140140 views77 comments44 favs

“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

14491449 views77 comments55 favs

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

951951 views77 comments66 favs

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

12721272 views77 comments44 favs

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

Modern Teleology

11381138 views77 comments77 favs

little curly moustaches

Autumn apocalypse

10821082 views77 comments66 favs

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

TRAUMA

11401140 views77 comments44 favs

Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

Thieves, a Fire, and Some Pretty Nice Ghosts

661661 views77 comments44 favs

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

700700 views77 comments55 favs

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

774774 views77 comments66 favs

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

666666 views77 comments66 favs

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

465465 views77 comments22 favs

Fire skates ascended out of the Skyscraper State _________________.

My Worst Nightmare

14131413 views77 comments44 favs

BUTTERFLY, A NOVEL’s monologue:

21582158 views77 comments66 favs

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.....

22062206 views77 comments88 favs

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

625625 views77 comments55 favs

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

15001500 views77 comments00 favs

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?

12461246 views77 comments33 favs

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

10611061 views77 comments55 favs

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

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

15771577 views77 comments44 favs

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

Marry Me

14611461 views77 comments44 favs

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.

11681168 views77 comments55 favs

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…

Sadie Hawkins Day

40644064 views77 comments99 favs

It’s Leap Year and my school is observing Sadie Hawkins Day, which means the sixth-graders have a dance where the girls ask the boys to dance and the rest of us get to dress up like hillbillies.

Like Virgos

13121312 views77 comments44 favs

-- All the guys who hit on me are Virgos. -- Like Gary? -- Like Gary. -- How could Gary be a Virgo? Look what he did with his hydrangeas.

Syrup

14201420 views77 comments44 favs

Things aren't going to get better are they? Would you like a sugar cube? No. Are you sure? I put acid on it. Oh, well yes, I guess then. Cool. Things might get better for a little bit then. Or horribly worse. Ha. Awesome. They taste like an orgasm…

Pebbles Against Empire

945945 views77 comments55 favs

Whatever you have,/ we can monetize it

Ode to the Tampon (In the Style of Sharon Olds)

514514 views77 comments22 favs

Today I tweeteda picture ofmyself holding atampon. Yes,you read that correctly. It's strangethat we still talk aboutperiods in hushed tonesisn't it? Halfthe population goes throughit every month but it's notsomething we talk about openly.You know when you…

Three

13881388 views77 comments66 favs

Revocable Love It was easy lying there with My head on her left breast Listening to the strong Business-like beating of Her heart. She looked down and said Quietly, I told you my love Was revocable. I give it To many men and then I take It back. …