Most discussed stories

Six Tiny Memories

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I took a lover on Ibiza either because he was clean-smelling or because he had a hotel room and there were none to be had.

The Winston Peacock Transpiration

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Winston Peacock had had a long day that New Year’s Eve of the final full year of his old life. There had been contemplation about the grave failures, the money lost. The third quarter of this past fiscal year had been especially dismal.

Alias

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I can tell you all about rock bottom.

Stitch

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He refuses to answer his phone, preferring the safe medium of email or his answering machine. He only eats pre-cooked, pre-packaged food, only drinks bottled waters, sodas and juices. He has cable, but only watches late-night infomercials and shopping cha

A Black Cat

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And then, and then, and then! After all that, this. After all that bullshit with her Dad, the Associate Principal, the idiotic counselor, and that psychotic police officer, after all that, this: a dead black cat. Blocking her path! Right in the middle of the street! …

Ambassador of Nowhere

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Before you tripped on the third rail, you were like any other: coat a shard of midnight-blue, eyes filled with gratitude but for nothing. You were a lost coyote on a snowy hill. With sad magnificence you wandered, terrorizing passengers who secretly wished to pat your…

concession to the shapes of hunger

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(no one need fear timidity in our tastes― / we like trying new things, no matter our hastes!)

Appetite(s)

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Listen, I don’t want to get all teary and here I am getting all teary, but it’s not what you think. What it is is that I think about that very first time, when she comes out of the bathroom completely naked and she looks like heaven’s very best neig

Kingdom of the blind

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Learned & wealthy but slowly going mad from seeing, he did the only thing he could/he turned to love

Italy, 1990

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She...learned the ways of men, especially foreign men, who eyed her mother even as they passed around pictures of their children, wallet-bound photographs that included their reluctantly smiling wives.

S.K.O.S.O. vs T.O.O.T.H. (With an update on Jinni of T.O.O.T.H.)

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"What have I done? What in God's name possessed me? Confessions of some college trouble in the 60's.

confronting the nonconfrontational

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You borrow words from platforms you could never build Borrow morals from a party gone sour

Aftermath

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You better read the papers If you don’t understand Cause as of last night I’m a one-man band You’d better walk through water With your boots on fire Cause Baby I don’t think I can take this any higher You’d better find out what I dr

Wake

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At my daughter's wake Mr. Aleford, her teacher, poked out his pointy nose, sniffing my cologne. How could I be plastered with this, at a time like this? Well, dear Sir, Two reasons. One, to hide the booze. And two, because my wife and I had made feverish love that…

in that time

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in that time people had gone away and i waited in the inside and looked out on balconies. the ending of the dusk was coming and the details of the railings and brick, the tree branches holding purple plums, the stacked railway ties and a thousand other details became…

The Real Story Behind The Lipstick On Obama's Shirt

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The lipstick on your collar walked up the steps and through the front door, without a key. Her smile was hypnotically red and bountiful. The guards standing around didn't dare frisk her for weapons, her lips were weapon enough.

Leg and Leg and Another Leg

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The robot may be grabbing onto something so big I'm mistaking it for the countryside, or the sunset. I could just be one cog in an infinite chain of leg-attachment, stretching from the cosmos to the sub-atomic.

Two poems by Raquel Chalfi in translation

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On the Shore, Tel Aviv, Winter 1974 From the Songs of Crazy Dolores

You Pour Vodka In Your Coffee

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I wonder if she is my real mother, if I could get one of those paternity tests and find out if she’s my real mother and if the guy she told me was my father was really my father. I can’t remember him very well, just a lot of him screaming and hollering an

Goody Two-Shoes

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She locked herself in the bathroom on our wedding night. That was my first clue that I had made a mistake.

Cookies

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What was it about the aged and cookies? Here was another one that relished them. Sebastian's grandmother was a specialist. People on the outside thought she was a bird enthusiast. Grandma could be seen refilling the bird feeders at all hours. After the morning…

Doctor My Eyes: The Ultimate Cataract Surgery Mix Tape

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Q: What's the best song to sing to your doc before cataract surgery? A: I Only Have Eyes For You

After the Poison

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I've measured out our time togethersealed it in airtight bottlesthe one labeled 1998 kept closelike smelling saltsOne whiff a camphor waking memaking me high on the idea of usputting blinders on your infidelitiesdouble vodkas and damaging wordsAnd when that isn't enoughI…

THE DARK

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The Dark It chokes It threatens To consume me Im Scared Mommy Im confused Everything is A Secret But I Know Who is that man You're withI call Uncle But I wait Outside Why does your hug Feel safe But anothers Feels So Wrong …

Velcro Shoes, a Cardboard Computer, and Other Signs of Brilliance

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It wasn't until later that I realized that any time a teacher complimented you on your use of imagination, it was because they didn't know what else to make of whatever you'd created. My homemade narrative video in lieu of the assigned “getting to know y

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 37

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—Frank, how is your sex life?

Ya Sure You Betcha (A Syttende Mai Challenge)

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Nora never dated Scandinavians.

The Nature of Things

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She’s not coming today. She didn’t come yesterday either.

There is a Certain Long Armed Bird I See

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from here with its brightly polished fingers spread easily amongst the cresting winds off the choppysky, circling the sun and sea splattered cliffs like a lone marble rolling down a smoothed out incline only to be turned invisibly over again as if…

Daddy's Teeth

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At night, I wake up, and Daddy's in the bathroom with a hanger in his mouth....