Most discussed stories

sidewalk cafe at night. van Gogh

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The heart of those stars is a dab of yellow light. The darkness of the blue night appearing so deep because of the downward strokes of the actual sky interspersed with a violet that is almost black above the truly black silhouettes of the city buildings

The Fruitless Resuscitation

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I was sent here to perform the autopsy on the norm, the status quo, the bourgeois.

Desire

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Dark morning sleet whitecrusts the world once more, shrouds remains of January thaw:

GRACE IN SUFFERING

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What I did I wouldn't call criminal, just stupid. Even my judge, after so many court appointments, didn't understand what had happened. And there's a reason I got out on illegal sentencing but, either way, I paid the better part of a year for it all. I don't want to tell…

Lawn

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white-gray mounds persist

Far

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His mother named him Far because she had high hopes for him

The Sway

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When it was sticky cool at night, he'd pull her hair up off her neck and spin it like a pinwheel. “You could be anything," he would say. “You could be a preschool teacher.” She waited for him to add, “For dragons! For wallabees! For…

X

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We draw a treasure map in the sandwait for the waves to wash it awayI ask you not to leave me stranded hereIf I'm bound for hell, I don't want to be left behindThe sun breaks through the edge of infinityspills over the line, soaking the sky…

Confessions of an Impersonal Spectator

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This is why I’ve decided to assign myself a position in life similar to that of Stuart Sutcliffe with the Beatles.

The Dead

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When i close my eyesI see the faces of the deadI hear their voices The things they said, their laughter The ones i thought would live forever!! Something got them though: the ones who lived fastIt was a drug, some bullets, a disease I thought they would live forever!!Those…

Elk Hunters

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"Damn! All I've got is a hundred dollar bill."

ORSON SCOTT CART, MEET LOUISA MAY ALCART: TOP TWENTY NICKNAMES LIBRARIANS HAVE GIVEN TO BOOK CARTS

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If you work in a library, you work with book carts, so naturally you give them nicknames. You could call your faithful book cart Bumpy, Squeaky, Rusty or Tipsy. But surely you can do better than that! Here's…

Abandonment and Abundance

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I’m living at the Edge of Graffiti And yet I still survive Because I walked across the line Separating me from the rest of mankind You can see me out here I’m in so much pain All that’s written on my face I think it’s pretty plain

Winter Paints Nelson County

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It was more than just taste/ more than a point of view/ and oil and pigment/ that painted a store front church/ a box with a cross in a vacant lot/ that welcomed desperation, faith/ and imagination.

Dream World

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I don't mind being dead. It's ok. Really. I've discovered a whole new way of being based on non-being. What else can you do? I like being invisible. I like groaning and rattling chains. I used to be a writer. Still am. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that…

Tumultuous Cracker

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The whole scene smells like paranoia.

Equality

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J., W., and W.’s girlfriend were exploring the nature and mores of homosexual conduct by discussing whether W. would be willing to suck J.’s cock.

Inside Out

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Who hasn’t at some point of the day wanted to dredge up everything in your pocket just to see what it is.

Spike. Resonance.

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Under the Dempster El and off in an alley, the girl taps the vein. The buildings moan. Thirty below wind chill, and the girl's jacket is cast aside. Her pupils dilate. “My mother, my mother, on this night, my mother, she died,” she says. …

The Palisades

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These are not the caffeinated men of barbaric lore.

Incidentally

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It started (or maybe ended) with the boot flying off the balcony and bouncing in the dead grass in front of our building.

The Bridge

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Anna's daily train commute from the outer suburban fringes to the city reveals a message that changes her life.

Hoping For Bones

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In the backyard with Joey, I make the mistake of answering him honestly when he asks what the gray brick in the dirt is for. “My parakeet is buried there,” I say. And he asks, “can we dig it up?”Joey's grandma lives down the street; he comes over…

mourning

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The moment I was told of your passing...

Mornings

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Over the last years of her life, my mornings began when Mom decided to play. Sitting on her black, ball-and-claw stool, she'd raise the key cover, stretch her neck and shoulders, and take slow, deliberate breaths. A deep, meditative state descended over the room and…

Tollund Man, one/breakfast, zero

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how enthralled might you be, or how much appalled,/plucked from a fresh dream that had just grown serene?

Of a Friend Whose Brother Died Young

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There was no logic to the thing; he’d left to drive his girl around. She had lived and he had died.

MILOSK BLONDYNKI

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Milosk had lived in the hills above Stari Vlah a long time, and while he did not care much for political matters, he knew the men were heroes of the state and deserved what Milosk could provide for them...

Grand Theft Auto (a true story)

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He took the car out into the middle of Nowhere, Mexico, and drove it at top speed, off-road for a day and a night. I am talking strut-breaking, axle-wrecking, wheel-bending, paint-peeling conditions and balls-to-the-wall, testosterone-drunk driving.

Jasika by the Mountain

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There was the small wooden structure near the base of the mountain. It had weathered many storms and its walls talked about the scars of this. In the hills to the west various cries came out from feral animals that seemed to go linger that autumn. But it had been a…