Most discussed stories

Biography of a Splotch in a Parking Lot

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She hadn’t died. She wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t even invisible. She just wasn’t see-able.

Payback is Lumpy

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Had a girl in 1968, an Ohio dairy farmer's daughter, and when she finally invited me to dinner with her folks, they passed the pitcher with the fresh milk. When I poured it, clots of butterfat fell into my glass with big splashes; while they watched me looking at that…

Touchstone Excerpt: Chapter 20, 'Ring'.

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The rush of noise inside her head was making her breath short and her palms clammy and there was nowhere for her to run. She couldn’t fight. She had no reason to smash him in the face, but her hand trembled with the urge to do violence as she rubbed it up

Preserved In Amber

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So no one ever caught sight of Eleanor picking her nose; besides, that wasn't what she was doing.

John of God, Painted by Murillo

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NO ONE CAN BE A BASTARD FOREVER

Big Heater

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they got some heat here in the West

Downtown

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bullets in flight make sharp, snapping noises.

I Must Want it. No, I Must Need It.

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She rubs her head into mine...

Fade

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I can take you away, away, away.

House

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I sat in the dark, mashing damp sand like clumps of brown sugar into my palm while the heavy Gulf air blew my hair into ropes. Sometimes I worried that I was unable to need people, but, as much as the thought upset me, I couldn't make myself truly want t

Goatee

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"I'm in a wrestling movie!" you shouted.

A life in books

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Forget Ulysses, life itself is a stream of consciousness if you ever have time to get out of the stream and take a look at it. And there’s nothing that gets you out of the stream like a short sharp shock.

One Story Above the Boy in an Old Car

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Near dusk today a car backfired on the street beneath my office window

The Time Traveler

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My work is not that sexy and glamorous kind of time travel that you see in the movies with Deloreans and phone booths.

The Power of Bad Words

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Her skirt is so short, said the teenage girls to each other. I was 7 years old. I said: she looks like a slut. They laughed; I blushed. Later, the slut smiled at me. I tried to find the teenage girls but they were gone. I wanted to say: it's actually a pair of…

The Woodsman

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In winter The Woods sleeps and the Woodsman comes. He collects the dead wood and makes coal. He nurses the injured animals and prepares the dying. He distributes the snow and regulates the temperature. In his fur hat…

RT @dadaism #amwriting

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How much do book editors earn? Peacock Love. (aww…)

You Might Be Miss Piggy

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You might be Miss Piggy. But I'm not Kermit the frog.I miscalculate the sums of our predicamenttrying to catch the dragonflies, rolling aroundthe dampness of our resenting this old modern world.You might be Missy Piggy. But I'm not Kermit the frog.I'm just here…

In This Moment, Rejoice!

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You did it, like, "Oh, there's a train wreck... I can't look away from the tall, leggy brunette with salon styled hair." And we both know it was certainly Armageddon whenever a woman, any woman, with large breasts which encountered a low cut top.

First Contact

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... her heart went kathump kathump and as the sun warmed the morning Patti once again melted into her normal condition of slightly dazed trance with not a care in the world but the health of her African violets that she now tended to on the window

Smoking Giants

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I think they've always been together, talking amongst themselves about whatever is happening around them. A part of me wishes they'd walk into the cave and disturb whatever is burning it from the inside out.

Nothing

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Nobody goes over there cause that’s where the body was found. A little one. Half in and half out the water, waded up like paper.

Paper Horse

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The trouble with paper horses was not how flimsy they were when you were flying them, reigns in hand, high enough above the treetops that falling would mean more than a bruised knee.

Sisyphus takes the day off

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what-ta-hell, fuck this/he snorts brushing/ the dust from his shoulders

A Flam

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In the blacklight of the storm, mother would tremble, spit and sway as the shutters would clatter and she would give away her balance. It was more than my heart could bear. She would always center her accusation with, “your boyfriend is a rake and a flam.” That…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 18

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She was dressed to seduce one man: Francesco Martinelli.

Assiduity Twenty Three

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The outside world will intrude . . .

Jared Sampson's Mom

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She died in a car crash yesterday. She was driving down Hawthorne, past the strip mall with the Benihana’s, when her ’05 Corolla unaccountably careened over the center meridian and into oncoming traffic.

The New Poetry

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The new poetry comes in shining metal boxes covered in glass so you can peer in.

haiku apolitical

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can they approve, our/gods in our wallets? only/when we tell them to.