Most discussed stories

among American gods

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in dark recesses of this morgue of earth / where beauty of the good does not compel, / where evil's horrors seldom do repel— / Americ gods reign o'er from birth to birth.

The Poe Man

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“Hey,” he said looking up from the New Yorker. “There’s a really interesting article about Edgar Allan Poe in here.”

English Leather Aftershave

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I just can't figure out why nothing terrible happened to me that night. Young, blonde, drunk American girl sitting on a dirty curb in the red light district of Nuevo Laredo, and everyone left me alone ... amazing.

Battleship

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You compare the brightly-colored wires sprouting from the bandage wrapped around your stepson's head to a bouquet of flowers. The tech sits in a chair next to Brett's hospital bed and holds up line drawings of common objects: cats, boats, skyscrapers,…

Sushi, Bentham Ave.

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I suggested a threesome for her birthday. In jest, I thought. But here we are; me in my checkered Oxford, Katie in her red silk blouse, as planned. We're at this sushi place at the corner of 9th and Bentham. “Zuma.” I hate this restaurant, to tell you the…

One Night Stand Before Finals

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There was one girl from Ireland, with her thick Irish brogue, who came into my bedroom early on the morning before my final exam for my Master’s degree in the writing program at U.C Irvine. She knew I was so nervous about taking the exam that I hadn’t sle

Intake

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If I came home and she had peed, even after I walked her in the morning before I left, I would tighten up my whole face and shoulders, so I wouldn't hit her, and I would grab her by the tags collar, and I would hiss at her what she needed to know, what sh

The Mujahideen

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Eighteen-year-old Svetlana Kabalevsky was now the widow of the poet Dmetri Kabalevsky, soon to be another widow-whore on the Moscow highway.

Bob Dylan, Republican Party Animal

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That’s right–Bob Dylan, ne Robert Allen Zimmerman–will be riding shotgun with me as we head north to fight the good fight against the Democratic Party’s war on women.

Jump-start

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"I don’t know what to do. I need to catch the 11:30 train, but what is the difference between doing it today or tomorrow?"

Breathing

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It was the end of a New York City summer, the heat and humidity thick all around. But in her body it was an unforgiving winter, the memory of pain always leaving her cold

Cat summoned for jury duty in Boston

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Cat summoned for jury duty in Boston Wayward hawk loose inside Library of Congress finally caught (God only knows what happened to the doves) Vacaville roof collapse blamed on bird droppings These are a few of my favorite things Piano mysterio

Rest In Peace

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Gone he is in his designated place Just resting in peace while I barely move on

Happy National Hairball Awareness Day

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Something’s not right. Okie, the elder cat, seems–distrait. Taciturn. Phlegmatic. And those are just leftover vocab words from my son’s senior English class.

Pain

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My pain is a black pearl hidden in a clean shell.

On the Empire Builder

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Naked American Apparel models romp with elk and antelope, and the Ghost of Richard Nixon directs traffic with the grace of a Wounded Hyena.

One Thousand Incarnations and One Thousand Deaths - Part II

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The door flew open, hitting the wall, and the woman seated in the corner across from her pressed herself against the bench. Loretta saw that down through her petticoats came a trickle of yellow liquid, which pooled on the floor.

Possum Woman

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They always referred to her as the possum woman back home. She scoured the streets just as the sun fell into deep slumber behind the sentinel, sun tanned shoulders of the mountains encircling small town anywhere.

The Washing of the Quilts

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Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

Holden Caulfield and his Crummy Band

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Holden Caulfield starts a band call Crummy He’s jumping around the stage swearing at everything, every damned thing in his oversized raincoat that he never ever takes off for any reason including when there’s the slightest possibility of having sex

black friday

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She is laughing, watching me spit out a mouthful of seaweed. It's a soft kind of laugh: small gasps between small sounds of her eyes closed, curling with the corners of her mouth. Her left eye curls a little less, closes a little more than it did when she laughed a year…

Zoo

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It's London Zoo and ten minutes to closing time. The clock walks in and out of cages. I love you baby when you laugh like that at monkeys.Penguin and pelican, wing in wing, approaching. It's some bird act, I know. Two birds from nowhere. One flies, one walks.The zoo…

Floater

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Just because I’m suicidal doesn’t mean I don’t care about whacking my head on some service railing ten stories down. The fact that I’m going to jump doesn’t lessen my fear of propellers or a broken back.

I’m Not a Needy Film Project

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Thanks to the popular funding platform Kickstarter, I am finally getting my life in order with the help of generous people like you. Dating in this economy, without a job, is surprisingly expensive.

Goodbye Uncle Jack

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He fought off the U-boat packs in the Atlantic — one hand on the tiller, one on the torpedo launch button.

The Abyss at the End of Life

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When I hear her voice Repeating over and over Will you help me? Will you help me? I get very, very sad Have you seen Rose and Fanny? She asks They died 30 years ago, dear Oh Will you help me? Over and over Will you help me? I g

Friends

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“Hi. I’m Rita Bates,” I had said. “Can I sit here? The boy who introduced himself as Thomas told me I could, so I did, and his friends all introduced themselves in turn. Around the table there was Bev, Ernest, someone whose name started with an F – maybe

The Overfilled Silence

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At the Rest Home for Silence We are teenagers At best I have to admit I fell asleep on the bus On the way to the Rest Home For Silence And I woke up To the noise Coming from the Overfilled silence It's the overfilled silenc

Amanda Palmer

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Amanda Palmer's explaining the eyebrow thing. An altercation with someone at Roadrunner, or maybe old boyfriend shit to burn— She's animated but he's losing signal, filling in the blanks himself. Whatever, it won't light at first, and then WHUMP and she…

When technology fails

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But Jeffrey was flabbergasted and couldn’t explain to the officer why he was speeding. All he could manage to get out as an attack of Tourette syndrome hit were nasty, flamboyant obscenities. The Alabama state trooper wasn’t amused.