Most discussed stories

Chattanooga Afternoon / Let’s Talk About Chattanooga

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Let’s talk about Chattanooga, the cloud / mountains, the monastery bench, drunk / at sunset

A Traitor of the Better Kind

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Go ahead, boy, pout like a fool.

Clover Grill: A Short Story

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I'm somewhere on I-10 in Mississippi, barreling westbound at 80 miles an hour through a rainstorm on a late Wednesday afternoon. The last road sign I remember was for Beauvoir, some Confederate general's…

Father Dunne's School for Wayward Boys #6

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Instead, we found his red-inked list of boys who would never be saved,

Texas Spleen

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Can we survive our Y chromosome?

Chores

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... honestly, the dishes were just tired. Too few in number and washed too often, they dreamed of an escape -- any escape, really -- from the endless cycle of hot water and being racked together to dry ...

Trash Burning, 1976

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This time the bag's bigger/than the boy and the door.

Summer, finito

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one season slips into another

Museo Libo

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He'd tend the door himself in high lace up boots, orange rhinestone hot pants, a tight black t-shirt, and black boa with orange swirl.

Sports day at the School for Clowns

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The javelin was cancelled after the unfortunate incident with Mrs Parker last year, but no one could have predicted this year’s sack race tragedy.

Napomo 17: April 1-6

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April spit its greeting, toe to head.

The Empty Bed

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But by day the birds / of prey were in control.

Txt msging

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Forty years later he was still her Romeo, she his Juliet.

Metafictionaut

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I'm available most weekends.

Hey, Pistolero

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I'm complex. You're complex. We're all complex.Who gives a shit? Man's fallen and he can't get up.I consulted Jacques the Atheist for advice: he toldme to beat it. "But I lack the proper stigma!" I cried.Once a month, I volunteer at the dressage parlor.On Tuesdays, I…

Jesus in Eden

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Eve is eating a plum. The plum is cold and how it got cold is sort of a mystery, but there are mysteries everywhere and the cold juice on her face doesn't really incline her to worry much about mysteries.

Chop Your Own Firewood and Learn To Juggle: Advice I'm Going To Ignore From "Life's Little Instruction Book"

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"Life's Little Instruction Book." There are some words of wisdom here that I plan to ignore.

Breath

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And here you are. Before your time. Behind the glass.

Baby of the Family

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I see my siblings once a year when we all show up, as if required by law, to eat Thanksgiving dinner. It is apparent with every bite how much they hate each other.

The Fuddy-Duddy Writer Reflects on her Fan(s)

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The Fuddy-Duddy Writer does not do wit.

Sad Songs

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She was thrilled when she learned that her best friend was having an affair.

Everything is Fine

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        The first one was dark and angular, coiled-looking inside an expensive suit.  Over her food at a small table in the hotel bar, Francesca had been unable to look at anything else but him.  Out of the suit, unsprung on a king-sized hotel bed, his skin…

Cremains

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I need a different storage solution

BEYOND THE LANE

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She learned the difference between listening and hearing, between looking and seeing.

The Stop

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You were busy, moving, alert inconstant motion; packingbooks, clothes, paintings;deciding yes to this, no to that. I was simply tryingto settle somewhere in the space.We'd known it for years when things were in place. Now, this abrupt interruption of…

The Witch in the Canyon

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There's a witch in Laurel Canyon.She made Wes a promise.Her bungalow smelled like Parliaments. Parliaments, garlic frying in olive oil. Parliaments, garlic frying in olive, and a freshly opened pack of Red Vines. Wes could have curled up into a ball and fallen asleep on her…

Aubade Faucet

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I. he leans his messy head against the walland contemplates his wild mistakeshe discovers a nest of red spidersoutside his rotting basement doorhe watches television in his socksand…

A Story

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Like many little towns, ours has an archive. It is a catalog of everything that happens.

Bookends of a Life: II

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The clacking ventilator reminds me of ice cubes rattling in your highball...

DMV

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When you bring information, it does not arrive.