Most discussed stories

Five Million Yen: Chapter 71

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It was that awkward time when one didn’t know if the night’s lover wanted to see you again.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 58

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On October 14, 2009 Oriana Morosini appeared as the guest author on America’s most popular live television book show: The Author Answers

CURTAINS

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She also castrated her cat. All by herself...with her Swiss Army Knife. And not with the blade either.

221B Baker Street, London; 1:37 a.m.

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He lays his piping accoutrement on the bedside table, removes his cap, brocaded jacket, boots and slacks. Holmes brushes gently, the back of his hand across the confused face of Watson— their…

washing in the dawn

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Here and there a few bits of beauty, with the highest respect, reverence, erect with pride. Almost twice a thousand dawns, ten thousand in intimacy, the breasts, the nipples, means of the world to nourish itself, by the intimate bay. It's almost pun

women in labor

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I am like a spice in wind, warm and gentle on the face, a reminder of your youth, tried and true. Lick the trapped silk from my soul, is all I am saying, with your high language. Get the core out of me and turn it under your tongue. Why shouldn't the egg

Barcode, Sloe Gin Fizz is Pink

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Sloe Gin Fizz is pink Bombay Gin comes in blue I’m sitting here at Emerald’s And all I can think of is – you.

Lalla, Chuckachucka

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He cut the heads off, and in doing this, their eyes came off. He placed the four discs on the windowsill next to the petrified avocado pit and Chia Pet clay shell. The eyes glittered like globs of jam.

Living Alone

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This morning as I stepped out of the shower I was hit with a panicked fit in which it became urgent that I rid my flesh of each drop of water that burdened it. Not quite like the feeling of being…

The Garden Heaters Of Kilburn

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when women’s hair shrinks into tight curly balls and sits on top of their heads like scrunches of wool, blowing in the wind, hanging from the mouths of recently shot deer.

In Which Lovers Separate, As Always

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We used to find ourselves watching a World War II documentary, but from the periphery of our vision; because our tongues would be swishing against each other, and we’d be breathing each other’s wind; and we wouldn’t be as in to it as we used to but we wou

The So White Woods

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The sun becomes hot. She removes her skirt. She is left with a black bodice, with white laces, leggings underneath and a pair of twelve hole Doc Martens.

My Dark Horse Run for Anti-Pope

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We flipped through the pages, filled with drawings Bates had done of himself in full papal regalia; mitre, crozier, the works. Beneath them he’d practiced signing autographs as “Pope Bates I.”

Joint Custody – The Second Coming

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A little boy sits at the table. He hears a knock at the door.“Mo-om!” the boy calls out. “Door!”His mother comes from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her clothing.“Jesus!” she says. “Would it kill you to answer the…

In and Out

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Emma held her arm up to John’s eyes. He looked, nodded. “My burns are on the inside,” he told her. “I’ll never show you.”

The Leap To When

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to pay dues to the calendar year / when a day breaks in quartertime / the stars account for halftone

f**k xmas

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Christmas Eve arrives with a relief that the season of joy will soon be over so I can feel the pain I am denying myself. Rosie presses her face against the kitchen window, leaving ghostlike impressions of the tip of her nose and her lips on the glass tha

“Honestly, I’m Not a Fan of Your Poetry”

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I will admit it. // I cannot write poetry / to save my life—

Of Dreams that Dance and Die, Before the Drums

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At eight o' clock: as, drawn by many bells, The patchwork congregation lopes and stalks, To churches far from serenade of shells To storms, we leave behind the windblown walks, And sails of youth, to glide through liquid hells, A temporal…

Chalk, Fish and Monkey

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She picked the fish out of the box leaving a pool of mucus and blood slowly congealing on the shelf and dripped it toward the kitchen table. Outside the wind lashed the tops of the poplar trees together and rain sprayed from the barn roof opposite.

Hearts

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She thought of an animal checking a scent before mating, and imagined that he said to himself, “All I need is for this woman to be hitting on me.”

Marry Rich & Live Forever

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Hey Handsome Rich Kid / Do you want to go boink boink in your Benz?

The Day of the Dust Devils

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The main street has turned into the lowland of dust devils, with the red sun scorching, continuing to serve the living like a giant blood pentacle.It looks like a heathen ritual invoking an ugly looking God with wings or horns, but beneath the whirlwind of rising…

The Answer at the Bottom of the Stairs

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She knew she had missed a step as her body rolled down the stairs. Panic set in as the world flew by her at lightening speed. Would she survive?

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 1

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Defenestration - the act of throwing someone out of a window. I went to Prague recently to visit my family’s castle, which is called Krivoklat. I’m not even going to attempt to explain to you how to pronounce that. It’s outside Prague, about an hour t

I've Seen Worse

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We met at a bar We didn’t get far We went to her car Then back to the bar I played guitar She was a rock star We met at a bar We didn’t get far

Fast

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Everything seems still, but it's not.

Waterstones and The Fridge

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I try to slot into order the sequence of events: the book deal that appeared and then winked away like a dying star, the white gloves and the brick through Waterstone's window; my novel lying in the shop front in a bed of glass.

The Old Man and The Lawyer

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As the jughead turned with a humph the old man muttered, "what a jerk." The jughead spun around and glared at the young black man and said, "Did you say that?" The old man laughed, raised his hand, looked up at the jughead and said, "I did." The jughead t

In Tongues

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Even as I moveTowards some form of true reprieve I can't make head nor tail of you Except when you speak in tongues In the dark progressive hills In the fields that freedom chills In the house Democracy built You will find a hint of guilt …