Most discussed stories

excerpt from a forthcoming novel

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I wriggled in the bed and felt the sheets soaked with perspiration. My arms were lined with tape and tubing, needles pressed in veins. I reached for the cloth again and again, and every time they stopped me. The hands that came were cold and hard, urgent

my first racist joke

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"There's a guy and he's standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon."

All Stories Need An Ending

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Drugs, after all, once in the system, demanded unfalteringly more drugs.

Roads Sign and Speech Acts

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Notice: No Trespassing. Warning: Falling Rock. Caution: Dangerous Curve. Declaration: I Love You.

If Wishes Were Horses Beggars Would Ride

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Two people are talking. They are both wearing hats.

My Flying Debris

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a book of 5 poem-like things I made out of silly string and shot your way when you weren't exactly looking "..kisses are a far better fate/than wisdom."--E.E.CummingsContents:1.The Day's Thin Blue Swim-Suit2. The One Who Needed Let In Most3. I…

Cloud Gator

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First it makes me think about the time I held a live, albeit tranquilized, juvenile gator at a zoo in Florida when I was twelve. (Somewhere these's a photograph, no doubt, of me looking terrified and a gator looking asleep.)

We shall wait and see

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Then there is Ethelbert's husband whom Ethelbert hasn't met yet, and who has literally weighed in, as if fed up and tired of waiting for a long, in full length, needless, wake up story. That is when Ethelbert asks, "Amy who?" related to a different group

A Visceral Affair

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Her nervous toes danced under the table. She thought, on this dismal day in South West London, the time had come to confess her state of tangled affairs.

High Fives

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They pull up to the curbside and he jumps out to shake the hands in that familiar men’s grasp/shake they do when saluting each other. If that isn’t his daughter it should be, the one sitting in his car, with her door wide open.

A Message from Upstate VII

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My wife’s voice behind me says, “Where did you get that godawful tee shirt?”

before hell freezes over completely

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I remember how silk felt against skin, dressed in my damn flimsy things, while the cold bit my nipples. How I would lie in your arms when I was young, after being awakened from my pubescent slumber. (Enough of that!) In a rush to grow up for good, holdi

Me and Lord Byron at Last Call

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Byron's achievement, certainly quite remarkable, is to have raised the drunken monologue to a literary form. Edmund Wilson

Pahk Your Kahma in Hahvahd Yahd

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“Namaste,” I say as I hand the guy his ticket. “The divinity within me salutes the divinity within you. Have a nice freaking day.”

Girl Running Up Cherry Street, Looking For the Past

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I know I was hungry, she says to herself, maybe. I was hungry for what you had to offer. Your fast car, your dad’s ski boat, your prettiness, your beautiful mouth, your eyes, and yes for the joy you could give me between the legs. B

The Measure Of A Man

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Cos I play hard that’s why. Everyday hard. You want someone who ain’t an everyday player ? Try our Closer. But ain’t his fault he’s always sat there in the pen, like he’s taken root. His number lines rely on the rest of the team. So he’s flatl

Lights,Camera -Action

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Gyan Ban Thoughts - This post is about aspiring models.Scores of these dreams get killed everyday under the arc lights. Exploitation is rampant and millions of cases go unreported.This story is of one such incident.

The Man That Wasn't Hers

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"I am lying on my back and am confused."

Red Sky at Night

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Floating in liquor only to drown the next morning.

A Dream in Brick

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A man walks up and faces this new red brick wall The bricks are all perfect as you might expect in a dream And the cement is tuck-pointed without a dribble, anywhere He looks at the wall and puts his head through it And when he pulls h

One More Silver Dollar

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Culloden County, MS - 1989 All Janine knew was the idiot had a gun. As to why he would ever need one was beyond her. He couldn't look dumber holding it, either. He was too small for it, or at least he looked that way to…

Oprah's Sister Murdered My Story

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Dear Patricia, You look marvelous. You seem marvelous. You've added wonder to Oprah's life and that's no small feat. But, here's the thing. I was working on this short story about a relative trying to get in touch with O, one of thousands, except, this one, well this one…

Metamorphosis Revisited

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When I met Gregor Samsa he was still a cockroach, erratic and skittish whenever the light came on. We often spoke in the dark. I empathized with the man. I mean bug. Ok. That isn't fair. You can't call a man a bug because he chirps and eats dried skin cells. A…

Hopper

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"Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut."

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 57

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"Ben! Ben!" yelled Monique. "Did you hear me?"

High School Bards Face Tough Summer of Two-a-Day Practices

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Joe Don followed the route taken by an increasing number of Texas teenage jocks whose football glory days are prematurely cut short and joined his high school's Cowboy Poet Squad.

Zorks

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The way things are looking, we haven't got long on this earth. The whole human race is in trouble. And forget global warming, the ground wars all over, the death of the oceans, Pat Robertson, that shit. Those are annoyances,…

Dog

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I’m not the creative type like my friend Bosely, an Irish Setter. I’m a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

Keep a Lid on It

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Eventually, all the windows on the street went dark, each small house cloaking its occupants in a world unto itself, soundproofed and emotionally remote.

Are You Still Mine?

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Greta asked me to slow-dance with her. This was bold behavior for 1960. and she looked me in the eye when she asked..