Most discussed stories

The Wind

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The wind comes up relentless in the afternoon

Because

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He spoke the "Why" and it stuck out its tail. He tripped and fell with his face wedged between the W. She kept the answer in her chest so the words wouldn't crowd him where he lay. The "Why" found its way back into his cheeks and puffed his face out like a disease. He…

Ready for Me

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‘Your writing is terrible,’ she said triumphantly, and there was silence. I wanted to say, no Tara, that’s too much, he needs this – working terrible jobs for years, forever, always feeling the discrepancy between his middle-class childhood and his hand-

Jam Sessions with Wannabe Rock Stars

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Hey Sledge! Yo. Did you know Socrates hated the idea of writing thoughts down? He said it weakened the memory…made us lazy. Say wha? That's why he never wrote a book. The only way we know about him is through his student Plato's writing. St

The End

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"Tell me what you remember."

On a Son Turning Twenty-One

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The rest is Scots, people for whom a taste is enough and a lyric’s as rare as a dragon or a poet named MacDuff.

hair

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A strange and unexpected shift has occurred.

Audience

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At 19 words, the whole piece is a snippet.

Vacation

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The week before she left for Costa Rica with her new lover she called me. Often, she did this. We talked for hours. What should I pack on my trip? she asked. Setting out with him …

The Continuous City

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The night sky was washed gray by city lights.

Two Weeks After the Shadow

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Two weeks after the shadow shows up in Stephen's x-ray, you decide to do something about the bucket in the garden. You start by wedging it underneath the faucet in the back yard so tightly that it pushes against the pipe with the groan of grinding metal. Now the hose is…

A Manual for Readers

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The story will starve. It will crawl up your throat to get the cracker.

Five Acts

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The television was playing reruns of Mr. Ed, but it was hard to hear because of the flock of birds in the palm tree. I’d sometimes imagined the birds coming through the window, a swarming of pink cotton mouths, mawing everything in sight.

the new path

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once he had planted Lucille things changed./his emptiness rivalled the hollow grave/dug for her . . .

I Don't Know How the Nights Can Be So Long When Life Is So Short

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The tall, standing woman with bright red lipstick, elegant at one time, you could tell, responding, “She has dementia,” pointing at her brain. “She was a Holocaust survivor.” And the one they’re talking about turns as she’s pushing her wal

New Forest

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An expanse of trees, grass, scrub, heathers, sky, space. A grey horse, the type her gran would have placed a bet on, approaches. "Don't like flies?" he asks. He holds her gaze, walks closer. Seventeen black flies crawl over the right side of his head. "What…

Invoking Fire

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We talk of his time in the jungle.

Mechanics

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Seems I was in the wrong place, wrong time.

Moriarty lets her hair down

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He did not hear her enter the room...

The Virus

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It all felt so tentative, he thought. The whole set up. Running water. Electricity. A vast network of instant communication. Food in all the stores. It was the latter that gave him the most concern. He'd never really been hungry. Even in his poorest days, in his early…

A Story with Tahini in It

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"What do you mean..."

Generational Loss

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I realize most automatonical authors stick to non-fiction, but if my work bears any resemblance to real automatons or events, I assure you it is purely coincidental.

Beside Dripping Glaciers

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We slept beside dripping glaciers people like us We were never meant to be housed contained, kept, petted, cleaned We could only be gutted You used us one time and threw us out people like us We sprouted the wings of desire by watchi

only connect

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lift my love and be lifted

2 Queers on a Seaside Bench Discussing the Ocean

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An impromptu anniversary weekend up the coast.Our hotel was parallel with the highway, which was parallel with the aforementioned bench, which was parallel with a footpath, which was parallel with the shore, which was slowly eroded by the Pacific. He was sitting on the…

Frontiers Yugoslavia Thirty Notwithstanding

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Frontiers Yugoslavia Thirty Notwithstanding (after Tristan Tzara) Responsible badly countries,circumstances better to that, powerlessness.Women these gender-determined “pluralist” conditionSoviet as overall the Women societies little countries.Have official…

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 6

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When I got word from Mary Jo, she warned me that Mitchell Parkman was out looking for me with a butcher knife. I knew immediately what I had to do. I packed up my things and sold the Pepsi van and moved up to a room on Regent Street in Berkeley, all the w

Something Strange There Is

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Maybe God couldn’t find His bifocals, and that’s why my check for ten million hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe a stray dog in heaven ate my check. Maybe God went bankrupt like everyone else. Okay, so maybe at the end of life I’ll balance my checkbook. I do

Rain Song at Summer’s End

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Soft rain, small rain, steady rain— what the shrubs and tangled young red oak tree need—

A New Thing

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I am trying very hard to rhyme, and trying very hard not to.