Most discussed stories

Marshmallow

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The razor finds hair, and cuts, eats away at the layers of hair I've built up since 16. Built up these layers of hair. Built up layers of hair. Big ears. Big layers of big hair to cover up big ears. First thing I got was this haircut. Haircut the moment I got in here.…

Thanks Again, Target!

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A tanka poem inspired by the CEO's apology and a 10% discount for the 40 million debit card numbers stolen at Target store since Black Friday.

Bird

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That was really the problem with leaving. She had to leave everything, could take none of the perfection with her. Anything she took would’ve been too little, or too much, once removed. Once not in his house, not in his vision or touch, the magic would

(Withheld) 1970

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The Moon The hatch of the lunar module hissed as it opened, a few puffs of leftover water vapor escaped toward them in a sparkling white cloud that rapidly dissolved…

Inventing Games

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As children we invent games and we're really creative. We concoct ridiculous rules and enjoy making adaptations to them. And everything makes sense. Then you grow up, lose creativity. You don't invent games anymore. Recess is replaced with a second…

The Death of Your Brother

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Suddenly a downpour erupted again, just like it did earlier in the morning. Clouds came out of nowhere, and it became a deluge. It felt like things including our tiny trailer were going to start floating around the nudist camp. Gina held back the little c

The Storyteller

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Our fingers, arms and toes slither over one another along the smooth crevices between muscle and bone like familiar childhood paths.

I'm a Clown in His Circus

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He called me Jay. I called him Dr Corvid. Until the very end, we lived alone. We had no use for any other companionship. I was Dr Corvid's finest achievement until he perfected his Disintegration Ray. I was the first working prototype of Project Novus.Dr Corvid created me…

Rest

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What do I understand? What have I mastered or come to terms with?

things to know about the people parked along the road that runs through Humboldt Park: part 20

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I traced the vein that rose in her temple when she got angry all the way along her body until it ashed out varicosely on her smooth calf.

The Rainbow Clockwerkz

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Mama Blinkey Lights yells at Papa Blinkey Lights and tells him to quit playing the fool, and when we turn our attention back to removing the shafts, we are chagrined to find that not only have they multiplied once again, but that they have gone yet farthe

Uncanny Valley, Goodbye

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When not enough is left to utterThe syllables it takes to say,Goodbye--Disassembled and developed,Laid upon the ground,Like the girded gridlockOn your smog befitted brow...Goodbye.And what if I said, hello?What if I said, good day?Would it change your sunken bodyAnd repair…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 17

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-Someone could have boosted this easy as pie, Ben said to himself.

Fanmail to Ellen Page

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You and I will never meet. You will never even know I existed. Even in dreams you will never imagine me. Someone told me once that your sleeping mind cannot conjure up new faces. It just spits out all the ones you’ve ever seen and that’s it. That’s it.

Henry's Night

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Henry recognized the shoes. “There’s a little vampire came in with those on, but I last saw her over by the juice bar.” He couldn’t be bothered with Arthur’s “sections.” The club wasn’t that big that it had to be defined by sections.

Stationed

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I

Father Must (from The New Yorker)

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It might not seem easy to breathe any love into a name like Father. It’s a stiff word—it’s not soft, like, say, Papa—but sometimes you have to breathe love into names you don’t choose.

First Blood

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...dogs snapping at the brush as it spins this way, that way, eluding the slavering jaws by a hairs breadth. The fox twists and rolls, tries every trick, every last desperate one.

Gator v. Funky Worm: Which Office Party Dance to Choose?

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It’s that time of year. The combustible mixture of booze, poinsettia corsages and the soulful sounds of Eddie Venturi and the Fastidians will cause people to get up and dance at holiday office parties who have no business doing so.

Elixir

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Crimson dawn cloaks the starlit night,devoured flesh canvassed fright.Memories flash,as moment’s lapse.Feelings trapped,my love gasped.

Gogol vs. Quixote

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“We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'," said Dostoevsky. Well, sometimes, I think otherwise.

Luminous Nights, 9

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Both of us agreed we needed to break up, and have some time apart before we ended up killing each other. Before Robbie left Chicago to begin classes out in California, he made a promise to me — that he intended one day to return and marry me. He sai

Wonderland Or Bust

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Alice sat on the edge, her legs dangling in the void...

Trapping for Poetesses

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So many ingenious traps for catching and hamstringing female poets have been invented that it is a rare editor who ever really sees one. H.L. Mencken

Arcana Magi Bolt

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Sofia looked around and found herself at a boulevard. She could see the town exit ahead of her. The bike still lied on the ground.

Just leave it and get out.

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The money stank on the table. Money is dirty she said, one of the dirtiest things. So many people touch it. This pile of brine would not explain its reek, only demanded that we accepted its stench as requisite. It had to have been the cash that stank, prior to its arrival…

The Mating Habits of College Girls

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Jeremy and I are in bed tangled in the sheets, my head on his chest, and he’s playing with my hair, stroking it the way I like. He’s breathing heavy, my arm wrapped around his torso, and I’m smelling him and he smells sweet like he always does. Th

Scene at the Courthouse

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Realization of one's ongoing decline. Not a bad thing.

The Dilemma

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Scribble something basic with traces of spectacular,pen every pint of pain spilled during the massacrewhittle the convoluted down to the vernacularboiled the whole story, now you got everybody crackin' upnow step back from the business like, “man, that's wack as…

Greetings from 17-E

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Remember the glass changing room just off the pool terrace? It's been replaced by a juice bar. Seems fitting, really.