Most discussed stories

Truthful Possum

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The possum is sneering with truth. I can smell the blood under his fingernails. He has seen it all, the backwoods distilleries and the back porch propane grilles. He has slept under the beds of whores and kings alike.

remembering

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I remembered because the man took us to see the horses. I didn't see something that set off a series of memories. I only saw the stables and the moon sitting pensively below the firmament. I looked at these and there was spaciousness between the moon and the stables and…

Sunday in Dogpatch, circa 1990

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Inspired by the photographic work of Susan Lipper. Grapevine series, 1988-92. http://susanlipper.com/gv_23.html

Caleb

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CALEBHe'd get up every day,don his clothes and tendto rote ablutions. He tried not to think too much.Because he knew what that would bring --the tethers he lost; failed causes,the last lover, who knew some things.Instead, he kept his eyes straight ahead,marked time,…

Automaton

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I must say your script is rather impressive. “You will mesmerize a girl in velvet stained garment…” “The channels of cologne fade from a body, eventually.” The girl carousels home with a raspier…

Good Belongs to You

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I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…

Every Headache

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It’s possible that you’re dying. Every headache a brain tumor, your friend once said. You laughed then. Now you begin to see what he meant.

luncheon on the grass

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I had a dream, I remember, where I am in this painting, Luncheon on the Grass. My dress was thrown off and the picnic basket, filled with bread and fruit, is spilled out upon it, and I am sitting nude on my underclothing, with two gentlemen fully dresse

Sonnet II

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When gratitude on lovers' lips rings false/ As flattery by courtly sycophants,/ Take care to well distinguish gold from dross/ So as to gild gladder remembrances.

Sunlight Falling Directly On Her Body

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The fine blond hairs lift slightly along the skin of your arms As you nod, listening to him. The veins On your arms standing up as well I was caught in an off moment because of your skin Because of the way moisture beads up on it The youthful fi

Everybody Be Cool, This is a Robbery!

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Wesley did not rob banks in Banning County. Wesley Roberts was the sheriff of Banning County; robbing its banks would have created a conflict of interest.

Old Flame

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The receiving line stretched into the lobby of the funeral home, which was decorated with faded Waverly wallpaper, dirty lemon yellow carpeting, and the kind of ornate white furniture I used to want in my bedroom when I was a little girl. The people in th

Guidance Counselors Fight Boring Image by Ghost-Riding Their Whips

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“I was talking to kid who hadn’t applied to college, and I asked him why,” Branson says. “He rolled his eyes and said ‘Why go to college if I’m gonna end up a tool like you?’"

No Title

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She spilled her neurons across the dissecting board of the violin, breathed deep and forced herself outward with every exhalation. Her molecules mixed with wax and horsehair, and her heart valves arched in unison.

An Eventful Inconclusive Evening

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. . . I just didn’t think to call the mortician from the phone outside the grocer’s store, how gauche that would have sounded to any passers-by, a call to a mortuary from outside a grocer’s store!

A Christmas Story

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Two days before Christmas 1946, my mother put me on an Illinois Central railroad train at the whistle stop of Neoga, Illinois.

The Ringlet

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Most of Carl’s neighbors considered him a lone taciturn man at best and an eccentric loony at worst. His neighbors knew him as the guy who left his house every morning at eight dressed in a suit and tie.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 3

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Then Vladimir asked Ellen if she wanted to try out the dungeon. And she looked at me, and smiled. “Well, yes.” “What?” I said. “No, Ellen, no! Do not let him lock you in here, whatever you do.” “Do not worry. Do not worry. I am Janovsky, no? I hav

paper doll

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she covered me with down and kissed me good night, tucking in loose ends, whispering prayers... she cut me out of paper and blew me into life. she held the scissors near my neck in case i put up a fight. she covered me in clothes cut out of colored paper: polka dotted…

The Arctic Express

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Sky: Snows, turns dark. Street: Freezes. Remains on a hill. Traffic: None on this block. Two: Did I miss the bus? One: You either missed it, or it didn't come. Two: Hasn't come. One: One or the other. Which one? Two: I don't know; I asked you. One: I meant which…

Beneficial

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Had I said something before, she might could have saved a little face by telling me to go to hell before we tumbled into the covers. All right. Again, I was no gentleman. Send me to hell. Whatever. I lay there on my back, my arm around her, and listened t

That Spark

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these fleeting moments of insanity.

1

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That evening, my friend and I were at a McDonalds'. It was late in the evening, and we got together after she sent me a text message she meant to send to someone else. I got a burger. She got fries.

The Day Felt

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Hoverboard plate glass of being upon within, splay palsy mothership. Sparks drift from beneath crouched workman's butt in front of a building that was ours last week. Tents with eclectic offerings pitched along thoroughfares winding through neighborhoods under dim…

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

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Lu loved his mother, but her anxieties nagged at him like poison ivy. You can't avoid scratching it, but the more you do, the worse it gets.

Bootstraps

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I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup

Irrational Obligations

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Irrational Obligations In honor of National Pi Day Any excuse for a circle, a way to pinch the day. They are calling it something like a celebration only with bigger words and too many numbers to count. We'll have to approximate the amount of joy …

How to Score With Freudian Chicks

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Unlike me, Gino could walk up to a group of unattached women, say something sensitive and thoughtful like “Hey, hey, hey!”–and suddenly the fun would begin.

we engendered song

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Ever the chance we were given, with luck always, fate. At least we engendered the song and the drink. Having sailed from the goddess of sensual love, having the best throw that beauty allowed, now you can call it will, though some will call it hate.

van Gogh's chair. van Gogh

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Finally he painted his own chair, maybe because no one would sit for him anymore (after he cut off a piece of his own ear.) The chair centered and framed so that one leg of it reached down to the bottom of the painting, seeming to be skewed a little, ou