Most discussed stories

abalone fishing

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after several beers this woman told me once/(when I was maybe 15)

The Man Who Defied Gravity

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Let us be stranded in the Andes and have to eat human flesh or at least toothpaste to survive! Let there be an earthquake! Let there be a flood! Let there be a tornado, a new ice age, an invasion from Mars. Only: let me survive.

Years of Co-Dependency

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The next thing I knew, the waiter was pouring wine into all our glasses. “How did you know we needed more wine?” I asked. His face grew red as he smiled, “Many years of co-dependency, honey.”

Squirm

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“We should start a virgins' support group,” said Cindi one autumn afternoon. We were sitting in the bay window of the Campus Coffee Cavern ...

Someplace Else

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Flish flash, flish flash, flicker of triangle lights. As he deparks, I say, “See that girl?” She crosses at the stop sign with blond hair flip, flash of white teeth: rips cookie from wrapper, drops wrapper on ground. “I bought her a…

Soliloquies and Interludes of the Interior Zombies

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As parents watched my skin grow paler, hair/ go raven, and demeanor change from pert/ to smiling calm, they started to complain.

Still Life

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They called him Camel because of his humped back.

The Rats

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I climb up on the sofa and stand next to him. I smell something.

The Buddhist

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She is not centered, but she finds her way.

Self-Portrait with Pipe and Bandaged Ear

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His ear is swathed by a large white bandage that runs down under the chin. Dressed in a heavy dark green coat, buttoned at the neck. Streaks of orange relieve the darkness of the green. Purple and black cap on his head. Calmly smoking a pipe.

Evolutionary Nonsense

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You can say words like "good",just not to me, I'm not in the mood. Ever sincethe fire extinguisher went kaput. Ever since yellowbecame red and orange became blue. Ever since thenews announcement that there is nothing more than carbon.Nectarous your…

Edward Ogle the Dickinson

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Hope is the thing playing checkers

Downward Facing God

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Argus was on to me from the moment I unrolled my mat. He knew damn well I was in the wrong room, but he turned blind eyes.

Girlfriend

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As a rule, she calls me whenever she’s waiting for her train or bus. ‘Hiya… How’s life-’ she starts off sweetly. Even though I should know better by now, I can only respond in the same old way. I’ll say: ‘Hi Kate!’. Next, I’ll try to te

The Needle and the Damage Done

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“She never knew her, you know?” Chief Jack Gardner, retired, said to the duty officer absently, thumbing a well-worn photo in his rough calloused hands. His gravelly voice cracked a bit when he said it, catching his throat.

Momma's Prayers

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One night, I wake and Daddy’s in the bathroom with a hanger in his mouth.

FWA (Fiction Writers Anonymous)

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Sebastian and Janice had been a natural match. They sought to deny this at first because a recovery assistance program was not a place to forge intimate relationships. It worked out wonderfully in Hollywood, but Hollywood, as everyone knew, was just a facade. So…

gravelortian part 24

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Outside cool fresh morning tiny fingers

Advice from the Receptionist

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The president is truculent today.

that part of life I forgot to live

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You won’t find me shopping at University Housecoats. There’s a vast gulf between being pretty, and pretty dangerous, I’ve learned. Oh yeah, and that part of life I forgot to live? I would live in the past too, if I thought I could re-achieve youth. At s

It is I, Hamlet, King of the Crabs

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Ronnie comes home carrying two sacks of groceries, one including a four-pack of Virgil's root beer. This is heavy stuff. It amazes me she is able to carry these items up our steep hill, nearly a mile in distance. I watch the news on our French cable station while she…

Mount Baldy

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The most beautiful possible thing is to deprive all places of their meanings.

bucket of keys

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I imaged him at his mother's house, eating chicken and tabouli with her at her round marble table, leaning back and laughing, then reading my “love you” and excusing himself to cry in the bathroom.

Dead Batteries

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She woke before the sun was up to brew a pot of coffee. His eyes blinked open as he lay in bed smiling, smelling the fresh coffee mixed with marijuana smoke. He walked to the living room and sat next to her on the couch. He rested his head against her shoulder.…

If I Was A Bum

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If I was a bum I’d risk everything for a drink or a smoke I would beg and curse and steal if I was a bum If I was a bum I would cuss out the Pope I would not vote for anyone because I would know truly they’d be telling gross lies

Abandonment

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The ideas just came to them. "Nothing On" consisted of a television on a small stand, playing an endless loop of "Jersey Shore." "Shopping Bores Me" was a men's flannel shirt from American Apparel on an otherwise empty rack.

Touchstone Excerpt 3. (edit)

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She glanced up at his face and read the contempt in his features on the instant, but the page before her offered no such insight. Nothing.

for one dedicated to artemis

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artemis is but a mincing fawn:/ no sacred bitches need i in my ranks,/ nor hunting dogs to tear a man apart/ when i have teeth enough to bruise fine flanks.

Eating Crow

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I stabbed a man at the Blue-Buick Bar and Grill. This may not be shocking news, all things considered. The man I stabbed didn't think it was all that shocking, even while it was happening. I'd had a lot of those energy drinks -- six or seven -- even before I'd puked…

Healing Comb

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My lover passes the healing comb through the hair of my soul during the night as she retouches my youth