Most discussed stories

THE SAME STORY

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Our house was big, red brick, with off-white walls that watched over us while we slept, while we prayed for our souls to be kept, while we shared bath water and bunk beds and the secret of the back closet we will die with and never reveal.

While the Light Lasts

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Smoke from bodies aflame tongues the strung moon;

Something Better Than This

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It's one of those raw, wrung out Yonge Street Saturday mornings. The smog-gray sky is just congealing into blue over the buildings and concrete.

A New Kind of Madness

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in my youth I was enamored of the moon—that is to say, lunacyI applauded the bizarre in natureI appropriated the gratuitous from dreamsI drank brashness and frenzy from bookswhat mad things I did!(throwing a bucket of water on the naked couple in the bed)what…

Tattoos

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Boxing Gloves for when...

Advice from Topeka

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... I know all about ax murderers because Elmo, my uncle by marriage to my sister who never had any sense was one. He done killed six women in a farm outside of Topeka in the space of they say three minutes, including my sister and her bingo friends . . .

BY THE BEACH

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(wc) 55 words, exact.

And Furthermore

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clickety-clack, not.

The Boy Who Knew Death

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As the sun rose each morning, so did the lonely old man with it; a sad limping figure strolling across the front lawn with a cigar tucked in his mouth, lighting fresh candles here and there, perhaps on an imagined grave of some loved one long lost to the infirmity of time…

Fairy Tale in Dachau

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Certainly leftover cyanide-based Zyclon-B pesticide from the gas chamber was used to purge the lawn of weeds, bugs and vermin. Very efficient. No waste. Perfectly recycled.

Daddy Walked the Pits

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Seems like the tar just got hold of Daddy somehow. What is it about asphalt and a man?

Would You Ask A Librarian For A Lap Dance?

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In the 15 years that I've worked at my local public library, I've learned that we librarians do plenty of things for our patrons that aren't in our job descriptions. After a patron asked me to change her flat tire, and another wanted to check out our pencil sharpener,…

The Sitzer

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Fred, who by that point had already wanted to call Jimmy "Jim," talked a river. Jimmy, who had already called her Freddy, took a mojo bag from his back pants pocket and asked her to write something that he could put inside.

Digging a Hole to the China Sea

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Could sampans fall upward, sailing from the bottom of the Earth? If so, which way would their sails bend—up, or down? And would the strange China Sea follow suit? Would salt water geysers spurt from the hole we dug, flooding the streets of Seattle?

A Course In Positive Thinking

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The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.

I Should Not Have Rushed You Through The Rain

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Mist falls from the opaque sky and splatters crystals in your hair...

The Beauties Abandon You

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The skin will stay but you won’t see it,/ camouflaged by creases, tags, and curious/ deposits of renegade fat and pigment.

Soap

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Jackson's a chocolate lab. I brought him home from the no-kill this morning. I've always wanted a dog, but I did it more for Wylie. We stand under the willow with the water running out the hose, Jackson, Wylie and I. Dandelions cover the…

Sparks Beneath the Surface

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If I should wake/ before I die,/ just shoot me through/ the one good eye.

Voices of the Dying

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raging on road and page

Fake Letters

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Dear Husband,

The Death of Narrative

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“Why, you tell a story,” one young fellow said. The expression on his face said “How gauche, how passé!”

21

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Five girls wobble into the train car. Their blistered feet protrude from the bedazzled straps of their sandals. Conductor: “Girls in the back with the open containers, you can't have those on the train.” A heavy-set girl in a belted yellow mini-dress…

Deep Inside The Light There Are No Dreams

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Mack’s mind held a chandelier.

Julie in 2004

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She'd have to be careful, but couldn't you just see it?

Poems Are Scary Things

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They will take you, naked, and put their tongues and fingers into intimate, erogenous openings

A Quite Literary Catfight

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Cavett asked McCarthy what she thought was overrated about Hellman. McCarthy–never known to mince words–replied “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.'"

Tongue

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I watch my mother No longer beautiful or charming Her left arm shaking Her mind a gone thing no longer doing her wrong Wandering away from me in the mall To kiss the hands of strangers...

Evil Humors

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I blame it all on evil humors. Something's leaking.

Old Vibrations

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There's always a sound, something triggering the fear.