Most discussed stories

At a loss

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I used to charm you, hold you in my hand.

Black Children Learn Derivatives

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The white faces of the train look up in an attempt to satisfy presumption, smoothing out any interest into glassy eyed gestures toward looking but lacking the very important quality of sight.

Four Sieges

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Nicole knows that Deirdre is winding up for the weekly pitch, practicing the line in her mind.

Lost

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I can't find my way back to the library. I've heard of this happening, that if you leave even for just one day and for a very good reason, as good a reason as mine, you may not find your way back. Now why should this be so? I do not understand this library. It houses…

Josef, Boy from Brazil

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I noticed his pistol before his pissbag and I knew then that failure not only had a face but a balding head, too

Squirrel Boy, You Are My Toy

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unbury yourself from the silt and give me some seal love.

Tornado Diary

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The storm grew in might until it spawned the worst kind of tornado, an F-5 or Finger of God.

Peter's Office

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This is Peter’s office. The room is small, and the wood paneling is painted white. Light colors, Peter has been told, make a room appear larger.

Thirty Seconds

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Some guys get by on hope or hate or both. Some lose their minds, if they brought them in the first place.

Zapruder Film

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But there it was, amid the “junk” set to be thrown out with the rest of his childhood, opened accidentally to the page of his Indiana Jones Action Journal about his winter formal when he was sixteen.

You Knew It

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was only a small enough matter of time before you started to show up as new words like soft pink clues dropped inside tiny fingernail teacups to find their innermost meaning, then wishes, floating up near the top like…

A Horse Walks into a Bar

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I got this job where I sell snow cones from a cart in a petting zoo. Parents ask if their children can take pictures with me. I neigh and nod my big horse head. After my shifts, I go into the bar, still in my getup, as this horse, and the bartender says,

Reversal

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For reasons he couldn't fathom, his motorcycle only moved in reverse. He engaged the engine and lurched backward hard. He called a friend, a gear-head with perpetually dirty nails, asked him to look it over.

Addicts

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He didn't think there would be girlish confidences, hopes, dreams but he is shocked, appalled, by the little boys aging at ten-speed, already wizened old men ready for cancer and heart attacks with toy trucks in their hands, skeletal women beloved by men

Conviction

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“You’ve put all my anorexic friends on the table nearest the buffet,” I say. “And all my bulimic friends on the other side of the room away from the buffet and the toilets.”

The Right Kind of Magic

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1. During the outpouring of our newly discovered grief oh how we danced, electrical, into oblivion, maybe once, twice. It was toall to be expected, but not everything you feel is always real. After all the dust may settle, but it…

Going Organic

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I should probably make it clear up front that I am not in my right mind, which I quite understand compromises the credibility of what I'm about to say. Without going into the history of my minor and somewhat more major psychotic episodes, my psychiatrist, unsure how finally…

I used to think the sun was the moon

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I imagined the sun to be the moon and discovered it was not on a road trip in California where I noticed the sun on one side and the moon on the other.

A Look In the Mirror

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...That flash of horror as well as the lie that replaced it were mirrors of sorts and both told the truth.

Big Dipper

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“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”

Armless Wonder

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For the woman with no arms, life is a constant dexterity demonstration

Mercury

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At 11 pm, it is 87 degrees and I sit in front of the air conditioner, eating oatmeal. The oats aren't soft enough, but it is sugary and fills me. Outside, the city hovers at the edge of a brown out, people sweating hopelessly inside small boxes. In Utah, it was cold…

Xmas Letter 2015

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Another year has flown, crashed to the ground, and convulsed to its death in a final match with the meaninglessness of existence. Decided to try my luck as a Walmart greeter this year but the apomorphine treatment made me break out in hives and I reacted…

The First Time

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Do you remember who I am yet? I remember the first time you made love to me. It appears I was one of the lucky ones … it wasn’t in a car, it wasn’t in your Dad’s boat, underwater, or any other weird place you've written about. It was actual

Walking In My Big Black Boots

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"People do that. They cross the road when they aren’t supposed to and get away with it. They do it all the time. Only, then, he might think I was a rebel and I’d rather he imagine me a square. A square who never was a wild thing. A rebel who chose to be t

Abstraction Is the Background of Reality

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Written in big letters Across the back window Of an old Pontiac:

Beauty

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She worked the research desk. Like most ladies before computers and cell-phones she lead a quiet conservative life. She wore dresses, spent time with family and friends...Emma also had been stricken as a child

Exhibit B

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My sweet granny was like Exhibit A that I was adopted. I mean, how can anyone be sure?

People Called Our Windows Art

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Mama hung them everywhere. It started with just a few, in our apartment and outside on the brick. She made walls into windows.

The Tomb

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His spoken words had reavealed nothing, but the far-off look in his eyes had told me good-bye.