Most discussed stories

A Tender Button

616616 views33 comments22 favs

He looked at a man in a straw hat on YouTube and thought “that could've been me, if I'd learned to play the guitar.” He savored the wistfulness of the moment. The pluperfect always made him sad. But the conditional was almost too much to bear. Octopi were a…

Anniversary

12031203 views33 comments11 fav

He honestly could care less.  We should converse, you and I, he says. All right, she says.  She lays down the baster in her drawn out way, heel to toe on the countertop, one step in a…

Beside the Pool at Noon

13161316 views33 comments00 favs

he flies away past the green explosion, into the azure sky

Life, in a slowly roasted nutshell

16951695 views33 comments00 favs

You wake up. Slowly but surely. Okay, you're in the bookshop. Yes, apparently this is where you slept, on the floor, with absolutely no sense of irony, in the romantic fiction section...

Blacktop

19301930 views33 comments22 favs

Infrastructure...

Lend a Hand

918918 views33 comments00 favs

Now how do you feel about that, My future graverobber friend?

The Maximum Security Book Group

652652 views33 comments22 favs

"So what about this week's selection?" I ask cheerfully. "What did everybody think?" "I liked it!" says Liz. She always does--her tastes aren't very discriminating.

STROBE

13391339 views33 comments11 fav

No excerpts for you. Next!

Alcoholic Reverie

902902 views33 comments22 favs

My grandfather’s soul And his infinite high-pitched laughter Intervene And the alcohol that Brought him closer to heaven But that wreaked havoc Among his family And my father Washes down the gullies of the Future

children

13601360 views33 comments22 favs

today on the bus/ a man in his fifties/ smiled at a baby/

Spiders

15421542 views33 comments33 favs

Ten am, and the piledriver behind Rhys's eyes shows no sign of mercy. Beyond the safety glass, caverns of empty air tumble down and out to where the edge of the city is lost in the murk. The figures on the screen pulse and phase with the hideous internal rhythm of his…

All that Remains

14971497 views33 comments11 fav

The drapes are closed against the sunlight, but Ginny can feel someone in the room. She peers through barely open eyes so as not to let on she's awake. She adjusts her position in a way she hopes mimics sleep, turns her head to the side. A woman…

Mutual Respect

12261226 views33 comments22 favs

Then, relieved to have cleared the air, they peacefully returned their way of living.

Mystery

16501650 views33 comments33 favs

In a corner of a neighbor’s land too stony to till Cob makes a mystery.

ATYPICAL TWITTER PSYCHOSIS

32203220 views33 comments22 favs

nine seven thousand debut novel words i love you thx for reading by #aksania #xenogrette #MINE #novella #birdking #pixies #ASPARAGUS #SPACETRASHVIOLET #SEX #DOROTHYNOTROBOT

He Brings Things Closer

16441644 views33 comments33 favs

Behind the plastic kitchen, where the special children sometimes sit, a large boy in tight dungarees had grabbed Stephanie's hair in one fist.

Things Found In The Wreckage Of Angel 1508

19571957 views33 comments11 fav

A canister of unused laughter taken from the mouth of a baby not yet born A splinter of wood from a cross, perfectly preserved in dark tea taken from the belly of a dead Irishman A milky vial of smog taken from the air of Los Angeles circa 1965 A

Put Your Trust in God

13191319 views33 comments00 favs

God is my stomach.

Camp Lake (excerpt)

14191419 views33 comments22 favs

In retrospect, we should have been a cult.

The Thief of Words

11521152 views33 comments11 fav

That's my memory, kept and clutched as with a sixth sense, that it was a prim Oriental afternoon, with the pink streaks in the sky going God-knows-where down across the park, but very far away. Ghostly, melancholy travellers. Birds met and crashed headlong somewhere up…

How to Have a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship with Your Own Parents (Part One)

18751875 views33 comments33 favs

Hi, I'm Alexander Payne. I hate sex.

R.I.P.

14641464 views33 comments33 favs

Her funeral was scheduled for the following Monday, and of course Claudia would attend. Trouble was, Monday was a workday for my parents. So when neither Mother nor Claudia could find somebody else on short notice to keep me, it was decided that I would a

The Karaoke Girls

16351635 views33 comments33 favs

The Karaoke Girls are not appreciated. Not nearly enough and not often enough.

THAT KIND OF LOVE

16041604 views33 comments22 favs

I've heard of sucessful marriages where there's very little sex. My heart aches for that kind of love.

Ring, Ring, Ring

14961496 views33 comments11 fav

If this is trouble, please call someone else.

That Crazy-Ass Willy Wonka Boat

19171917 views33 comments00 favs

I was crouched under a bruise-purple sky on a field of battle. I held a World War I-era weapon, an ancient black-iron spear with a spring, and I was told to load balloons onto it without popping them, and then I was to fire the balloons at some unnamed ta

You Know It!

16741674 views33 comments00 favs

"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"

The Tale of Pregnant Tinkerbelle

15751575 views33 comments33 favs

Everyone was shocked when they heard Tinkerbelle was six days gone and had got so heavy she couldn't fly. Who could have done it, everyone asked, but Tinkerbelle wasn't telling. So no one knew. That isn't true. I knew, and in this Declaration I swear I will tell…

The Infinite Wheel, Hold That Taxi

13651365 views33 comments22 favs

Scientists have discovered what I already did once on dope way back in the Sixties. There are so many other earths out there that they are almost infinite. Now in our other lives we have to shuttle from planet to planet reading our poems. And o

Carousel Horses

14691469 views33 comments33 favs

From this distance, he reminded me of a sleazy pink flamingo, waiting for feeding time at the zoo to deepen the timbre of his feathers and hint at the promise of a narcotic aviation before his commune of hens.