Most discussed stories

ouroboros

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if it were a child/ it would be in first grade this year

The Answer Man

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Her legs splayed out in front of her. She was a mess

Fly Fishing For Bats

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then something like a shark gnawing on a harpsichord. Her drum kit apparently is an entire laundromat. A pocketful of marbles spilling in rivulets, down a set of narrow linoleum steps, merrily as two warblers splashing in a birdbath. several octaves below

01.24.2023.0720

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When I stopped drinking,the desire to write poems was gone.Remember this to be true.The black dog still waits in the distancenot far from the fence.I watch it and open the sliding windowsto let the winter air run amuck through my kitchen doorengulfing me with…

Angels Carry the Sun excerpt: Chapter One, In the Woods

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Chapter One In the Woods Everett Finn liked white-bread sandwiches. In June, Flora forfeited all her free cafeteria lunches to sit with him during his quiet lunch breaks in the classroom. "Eleven more days until graduation," she told him. He sat…

Summer XVI

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It was the truth, you'd say. Then someone else would step in, someone who knew the situation. It wasn't long before the entire population of our sleepy little town became accustomed to your routine. It was even welcome in some circles. Those circles were made up…

The Color of Warm and Cold

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Sandra exits her bedroom wearing a bikini. It’s celadon green, though brighter, ‘SW#6705 High Strung’, I’d say. A saturated splash of yellow overtakes its straps.

Time Flies

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Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince

from Presence

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we gave divided houses / child stand up anyway

The Story You Wanted

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For I would draw a diagramTo signify the things I amBut I think you know--Todd Rundgren The door was opened before me. I know that's not a good way to start out on an adventure, but it is what happened to me. I didn't see any beckoning light, I felt a crazy urge, like…

If There is an Airport

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If there is an airport, it is one of dreams. If there is a dream, it is one of shadows. If there are shadows, there is not much more but the thoughts of a short man meeting a short woman on a runway of forbidden desires, in a foreign city belonging to n

My Fictional Tormenter

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Having a single blurb on your book cover is like having a single friend in grade school. So I lied.

Head

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Z. takes lewd/suggestions/with little blinks/of his everlasting/eyelashes.

A Bad Year

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It's been a bad year, People dying. Some too close to home, Some too far away. I cry down to you, In your casket, and think you might sit up. You were not sick You went in just a moment, Looking stunning and alive. Not…

My First Love Messages Me On Facebook

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He tells me that he thinks he reached out as he needed healing and I wonder if I should diagnose him on the spot, explain what years of therapy taught me about him. I don't. Instead I compliment a photograph of the pot plants he grows, organic,

The Mix Tape

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I made her a mix tape. It was revolutionary. Twenty-two songs she had to hear at least once in her life. I even drew some trippy drug-like designs on the label of the CD to make it seem more real. It was the ocean and the sun and every body of land balled up…

Love Rusts

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Their love was doomed at the onset, yet they engaged in it anyway, heedless of the numerous error messages and critical runtime failures. Abort, Retry, Fail? They selected Retry over and over.

Read My Lips, or Simply Refer to the Subtitles

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A friend has been shopping an opera around without success. It's about Arthur Inman, a hypochondriac who hired people to talk to and, in some cases, have sex with him.

Perdita in pieces

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Perdita's confusing profusion of parts makes it impossible to know which way up she goes.She flutters beneath the camera's shuttered stare, …

Our Handsome Whales

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are speaking clear enough, through their open and bleeding wounds, for you to at least try and understand. Waving their massive arms like living lighthouses, bobbing in and out of the floundering waves, they are splashing out an…

East

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We went east. It wasn't all that easy, but easier than staying where we were, unable to freely move or give birth to anything brand new. We went east insearch of the mysterious faraway beginnings of a mythical wild west. We went east becauseit…

the cold envies whom?

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cold plunges its lethal chill spade/into the dirt before cold takes the earth/to ossify it stiff with ice/the semblance of cold the semblance of death/said only to be felt this side of the grave.

How to Hypnotize Women

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The irony is that Smart's work of self-abnegation has surpassed that of her erotic master; George Barker is largely forgotten now, while the reputation of Smart's one work of genius seems secure.

The Last Time I Saw Jackson

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The last time I saw Jackson, I didn’t write down the set list. This time I didn’t write down the set list, either.

Cocoon

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Small wonders, her worthless,priceless treasures fortify the wallswhile hoarded trinkets protect her like armor against memoriesof a desperate past.

The First Several Chapters of His Memoirs

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He went for long, quiet walks. These seemed to quell the seething rages swirling about him as he exhumed and reconstructed the truth of himself.

True Stories About False Dancers

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The world is a mighty funny place. It spins wildly and we are held down by its strong ghostly gravity. We're still able to communicate with one another over morning coffee and delicious cake donuts dipped in chocolate. Some of us used to keep…

My Stigmata

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“Don’t you think you should tie a tourniquet or something?” she asked as I bled profusely from the points where Jesus was wounded during his crucifixion.

Possible Wildlife (redux)

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This caused a problem when some raccoons, skunks and a fox were found lingering on and around the premises (separately, of course).

The Letter

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You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world