Most discussed stories

The Sinking Boat of Evolution

662662 views22 comments22 favs

Living dangerously, I left my house with no glasses, no umbrella. I also forgot my straw hat, no purple dye for my gray hair, my map of the world to come,

Sri Lanka

17831783 views22 comments11 fav

When he turned to the quiet sound of her voice, he knew he'd heard her before, that she had already called out several times, and that she'd reached him somewhere in a recess of…

Cousin (from The New Yorker)

12641264 views22 comments00 favs

...to know something people around you don’t know can put you outside of them. And then you can’t get back in...

The Town Secrets

13181318 views22 comments11 fav

How old is he anyway? 35? Maybe 40? Old—but in a good and sophisticated way. Everyone says he’s good-natured and generous, Mr. John-just-like-a-movie-star-Wagner.

"What It Means to Exodus" Or, "Brrrraaaawww"

10041004 views22 comments22 favs

"I have consulted the Internet," the man remarks, squatting low, sorting through a mountain of tablets. He snags two and stands slowly, confidently, and I realize suddenly that he is Moses. Two iPads, cradled surely in each wrist, glow with lists.

Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get To the River

10041004 views22 comments11 fav

I think we could be twins, our hands hitching us together like paper dolls, our parkas making blobby round balloon shapes as outlines for our bodies. I imagine each of us holding onto someone else, and the line continuing on from there until we have a cha

1. The Knife (or, Ignorance is Bliss)

874874 views22 comments22 favs

He showed me the knife, said it was his best friend. This knife is older than you, he said. Here, run your finger along its blade. Like this. He showed me how to do it.

Boxes

976976 views22 comments11 fav

His voice isn't familiar but his words are. He says he knows we haven't spoken in years and apologizes for it. I can hear him pacing on the other end of the line, tapping things and then a shriek of glass shattering. Really, I tell him, no need to…

What's a Horse without a Loofah?

835835 views22 comments11 fav

A horse is a horse Of course, of course Unless it's a horse Without a Loofah You better look into the mirror Check the picture window too I may not be the only one Who's broken Don't it take a little more When I'm not with you? Don

Anxiety

703703 views22 comments11 fav

Scenes of anxious

Our Terror Closet

13961396 views22 comments22 favs

"Honey," I called out to my wife. "Why do we have Spam in the closet?" "You mean unsolicited bulk messages sent electronically?" "No--the canned, precooked meat product made by the Hormel Corporation."

you are the stem that rises, in my dream

636636 views22 comments00 favs

In my dream I am the showy leaf, and you are the stem and you are the strength. I am the leaf turning colors, my face flushed, the blonde hairs at my neck, and there is the deep carnal twisting around your stem that sends me floating to the ceiling over

soften the lazy honey

10731073 views22 comments11 fav

Pots of wine crowding the forehead until irrational thought crowds out the stubborn lizard of sanity and, God knows, my elegance. What else is left? As the young seeks change, so will I. Seeks the carmine lip, so the white bud seeking God, the unchanged

Unibrow: A Confessional

11091109 views22 comments00 favs

I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with "unibrow" except Tsing Tao, which is a brand of Chinese beer....

The Adventures of Tequila Kitty: Chapter One - by Christopher Chik

17991799 views22 comments11 fav

That’s how I’d met him really: drinking games. We’d both been at the local watering hole, challenging the other patrons to drunken games of chance and making a clean sweep of it. A few guys figured themselves for alpha dogs had Teqs cornered after he’d ta

a supermarket horror story

10331033 views22 comments22 favs

stoned,/ i made the mistake/ of walking to the store across the busy street/ to find myself in the middle/ of the pep-up/ for a basketball game/ or something like that.

Things That Should Be Blue

238238 views22 comments11 fav

Time to cough up phlegm.Cover up the feetGive up your stratagem.Find an empty seat. Cuckoos in their element.Parrots too.Best to hide your sentimentover things that should be blue, but instead are burning yellow,or oranges, or red.These…

Miriam

939939 views22 comments22 favs

When daybreak comes, it falls a pall pást mé, For it descends too soon for woken sight to see A shade of any gladness in its dew's first blisters: All my dreams of daylight are in darkling whispers Of…

Belonging

16741674 views22 comments11 fav

Don’t eat your lunch here For this is where the monsters sit.

PASSING CUSTOMS

14101410 views22 comments11 fav

What Mohammed didn’t tell me was the house was owned by drug dealers and inhabited by wealthy playboys who urged me over and over again to accompany them to the bathhouse.

Rubber Chains

988988 views22 comments11 fav

He turned metal chains to rubber with the force of his mind. He prepared tacos for the paperboy.

Black Wheat, 3

662662 views22 comments11 fav

(it) looks out at the world from behind a film (it) does not participate (it) is slow to love . . . There is the image And they say they are in the world . . . Blood does not shake their hearts They lie and take your s

Puffer Fish in the Infinite Laboratory

952952 views22 comments11 fav

They put me in charge of developing a drug that stifles fear.

A Conversation on an Empty Balcony

943943 views22 comments11 fav

I go with the wind, like the smoke of this Marlboro red as it dances among the palm trees.

Puke

805805 views22 comments11 fav

What the fuck is that smell? Puke? Pine-Sol? Oh shit!Back seat of a cop car.Again?What is it this time?“Excuse me, officer? Where the fuck are my clothes?”

dealt.

788788 views22 comments11 fav

Stealing time. Always gambling. I used to wake up with wet eyes; remnants of nights and days spent in places I never wanted to leave. I took to insomnia to escape the dreams that reminded me of places I could never return to.Now I sleep here. When I can.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 16

738738 views22 comments22 favs

I still wake up with a start to this day, remembering the sound of that squish. And the cheer from above of all the brutes hanging out the open castle window. And of course the roar of approval and delight from the hordes of Chinese, Russian, and Germ

Shine

16391639 views22 comments00 favs

I was afraid of needles and ponds of water and I was transfixed by both.

Legs

10241024 views22 comments11 fav

Rachel Stevens is an attractive woman I notice her long fair skinned legs and think that She must wear sun block to live in Arizona And have skirts like that. Today she invites me inside, She says she has a light bulb for me to change — up high. In a friendly…

Puppet X, 1

11641164 views22 comments00 favs

I know you, ladies and gentlemen We see the near future through you Your factual face as you sit indoors Youthless In your ordinary chair