Most discussed stories

First Crush

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I wanted those jelly rolls so bad I could scream

Time. Stop.

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So young. So innocent. How do you tell a little one that her mother is dying? The father seemed to be bathing in a sea of hopelessness lately.

Nexxus Products Company

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I think fat will just appear, like a narcotics cop at my door, or something.

The Opposite of Remember is Demember

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No matter how you do it, forgetting something doesn’t mean as much once you’ve forgotten.

Breath and Shadow

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I do not like it when the dead look back at me.

Spare Parts

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Breaker's Yard Blues!

Ladybird

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On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

A Raisin in The Sun

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I was about sixteen or seventeen when James Miller had a stroke and died. He was a friend of my father's and a preacher-guy. The last time our church had been that full was at the barbecue the weekend after the church was built. Somehow, the structure went…

"they call me the midnight gambler"

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That night I came as close to getting laid as I had ever come in my life, without actually getting laid, after two and a half hours of intense petting, begging her to go down in the front seat of my car, with her asking: Why? Why, Jerry? Why? That was a

We're all Mad here. I'm Mad. You're Mad!

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She heard the quick footsteps and knew where they were headed. Running down the hall she knew she “only had 1 hour left and there was no time to waste”.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 49

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Francesco entered the gallery, and he immediately went to work.

"It's the dead of midnight, and Orion wheels round..."

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It's the dead of midnight, and Orion wheels round- With passing road-streams as its parallax, cars More distant from us, as the next one's windows Blocks the view of riders free from traffic lanes; I Am not your window. As you glide, or go to…

Bloomington, September 2021

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The sun is setting.The leaves are rustling.Their shadow against a weeping willow.A dog's endless bark.A child runs barefoot against the lawn.A bird is chirping against the song of the cicadas.A red chimney in the horizon.No smoke.It is an Indian summer in Bloomington.I sit…

Bright Red

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They shoveled coal into the furnace of the city so the ghosts would be warm for their haunting.

Encasement

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A universe, all of it, was encased in glass.

The Upstart Apprentice of Golden Mean

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...I am taut...my ankles ache...

Unfinished Business

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you are the most uptight pansy I have ever met

Every Moment Is Lovely, Yes

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The man was happy, filled with it, the happiest he had ever been. He was so happy that he felt he did not deserve it and he deflated. A woman with apples for shoulders and an eep for a laugh told him that he did deserve to be happy and the man thought

Walking Green

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1. There is a crowd of people walking to a field and since there are over forty of them, the conversations become divided and then subdivided in accordance w/natural rhythms. I follow behind. It is a football game. Makeshift. Twenty aside roughly. Almost every…

Mother's Poem

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The monsters in the sky burst with riotous laughter, their rumbling voices barking out commands, their cracked nails scratching on the screen, their knotted knuckles tap-taping on the window. Little girl, won't you come out to play? She clutches her floral bed sheets,…

The List

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Agnes folded the magazine in her lap. It was one of those women's magazines that had a picture of a supermodel on the cover. The girl was pencil thin and not that attractive, at least not as far as Agnes was concerned, and she was surrounded by boldface words encouraging…

The Gentleman on the Train

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The gentleman is discreet, but his eyes wander from his paper at intervals as we travel together from London to Manchester. We happen to be on the same train and he happens to be sitting opposite me. I happen to be a size 34C.

The Hamster Eulogies

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But not once did we mention heaven. The next day we bought another one.

How to Cheer Up a Sad Song

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It's one of the most difficult problems of aesthetic philosophy: What do we mean when we say that a song is sad? None of the big names--Aristotle, Kant, Croce–Benedetto, not Jim–come close to answering it.

CfK

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A sturdy and goatish original by know-nothing punks from the sticks. Who cares if we were puny and smelled like fresh milk? For a few years we played and rocked, even turned the Appalachian soundscape a little brown at the edges. At least at first. Mainly

Unemployment

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The line of the unemployed wrapped back on itself like an accordion pleat and extended all the way across a great hall You could see the faces of them, bluish and drawn under the dim florescent lighting First in

Deviance

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I tried to enlighten them. For my trouble, they tried to have me deprogrammed. I condemned their narrowness of mind; they pitied me my naiveté. I ridiculed their religious bourgeois complacency, but they really didn’t know what I was talking about.

Andy on Bloomsday

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I wonder if regular nonfashion clothes are out forever, if these kids will ever dress normally like, you know, Phil Donahue, again.

77 Words About Nothing [02-02-2013]

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Connecting the dots the past two weeks, I’ve concluded you’re pregnant again.

Who Will Carry Us?

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1. People avoided Mac, the Great White Hunter, which was how he liked to think of himself, even though he was not white. Mac was cocoa colored and stalked his prey nearly nude. The city was his…