Most read stories

Blink

19541954 views44 comments22 favs

He stands straighter and walks toward the phone in the back, near the bathrooms. His wet sock slaps loudly against the tile floor. The buzz of conversation dims to whispers, barely audible above the roar of the espresso machine.

Migration

19541954 views2020 comments1313 favs

She offers the girl a seat, asks her to stay for a minute, but she can’t, she just came by to say hello, and don’t you like my new raincoat?

The Waves

19541954 views77 comments66 favs

...some years later I heard that an old friend jumped off that bridge to her death.

The Messenger

19541954 views77 comments11 fav

Sophie didn't stop for lunch when she worked. She showed up first in the morning and worked through until the last package was delivered. She pedaled from building to building and walked quickly, at just shy…

Blueberries

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Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…

Missed

19531953 views1313 comments1515 favs

How I felt in Ireland.

Child's Play Brings Back Memories of Busted Heads for Greying Protestor

19531953 views88 comments33 favs

"My boy Jake fell in with a bad crowd when he went to college," Coffelt says, shaking his head. "A bunch of accounting majors."

Jesus Had a Tat

19531953 views88 comments44 favs

Jesus Freaks will go tat head... crowns of thorns for their noggins and so on. Christ had one too...

21stC irl (easy action) party

19531953 views2121 comments1313 favs

Nobody took pics.

Noah's Ark, NYC

19531953 views44 comments22 favs

Two by two they come walking down 7th Ave girl with girl boy and girl boy and boy two pigeons strolling side by side two robins two crows walking stiffly like two pieces of anthracite coal two spiders two dogs sniffing each oth

Love Story, a Sequel

19531953 views2121 comments1111 favs

He hid in parks and abandoned apartment houses until his wounds healed. He ate nuts, berries, and seeds. A shy, gentle soul, he watched children playing on the monkey bars, and thought of his lost youth.

Songlines

19531953 views1313 comments1111 favs

When the planes crashed,when the levees broke,when the ground shook,there was a song I dreamed of,humming subsonic,a chorus of voices and prayersuncorked like the little brown jugthat holds all the love and memories.In the outback, Aborigines believewe create the world by…

Human Frailty

19531953 views1717 comments1212 favs

Conceptio culpa Nasci pena Labor vita Necesse mori

Milton wrote his best lines blind

19521952 views22 comments00 favs

the unhealthiness of obsession and control until the lines burn bright

Mother Died Tomorrow

19521952 views1919 comments1313 favs

memories that no longer make sense

'Bout Apples

19521952 views11 comment22 favs

Sawyer walked toward the lone house with the sentinel trees. Behind him there were no tracks in the snow.

Act of Creation

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Mary ran her cake business in a way she could never have run her marriage. It was by appointment only, full deposit, partial refund (and this purely at her own discretion). Business was terrific and she had to turn down job after job. She only made…

Muslin

19521952 views1515 comments99 favs

Outside I see the daytime moon, and it is faint as a fingerprint. My cousins have up-turned the biggest rocks and removed all the Sow bugs. The land is damp and red, and the trees feel wet to the center.

Major Chaos

19521952 views1717 comments66 favs

Major Chaos came here one of those hot days. I was washing the floor, wearing old clothes, when he knocked on my door. Since I don’t have many visits, I let him in. At first, he seemed like a soldier, but upon reflection I realized he was a big green fr

Three Photos

19511951 views33 comments00 favs

The first photo above shows plainly: five children dressed in suits and dresses. There are three girls. Each girl wears a yellow sundress with chiffon ribbons. The boys have been terrorizing them--the girls, not the dresses.

Sufficient

19511951 views22 comments11 fav

She used to think of him as someone to entertain with charming lies, but things evolve in unexpected ways.

Holding Hands in Public

19511951 views55 comments00 favs

Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

Opening Line

19511951 views44 comments33 favs

I cannot read one more award winning novel by a female Asian author about the atrocities committed against their childhood, she thought. Then she sat down with her trusty yellow pad and Papermate fineline to write the next lyrical story of a female Asian writer and the…

The Fish, the Fisherman, and the Sea

19511951 views44 comments11 fav

My father is remarkably clever. That is, for a rundown, henpecked fisherman. He has caught me again. He has me slung over his back in a rickety lobster trap and I can hear him huffing and the water in him sloshing and though I can't see his face, I imagine it is ruddied…

Like An Endless Rain

19511951 views22 comments11 fav

Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.

The Brazen Bull

19511951 views99 comments44 favs

History is replete with brutally imaginative techniques of torture and execution, but I am the only death machine that doubles as a musical instrument.

The Wish

19501950 views00 comments00 favs

Now coins used for wishing are not like coins used to purchase bread or carrots. Coins that have been invested with the magic of hopes and desires are special and have special properties. The difference between wishing coins and ordinary coins is very subtle.

Phantasmagoria

19501950 views33 comments11 fav

I sit in my chemise like a forgotten rag doll on the stool before my vanity. My body is postured towards nothing in particular, my gaze keeps returning to vacant; it’s far preferable to any fixed sight it could find.

The Damp Place

19501950 views88 comments55 favs

As long as he could still take the stairs, he would go down there to be with the memories that each piece held. He knew that their time was about up, because his was too. His wife had already gone, and even before that she had long stopped using the washe

'The Good Life' Not by Bud Smith

19501950 views1111 comments77 favs

I'm trying to read a Poetry in Motion poem on there wall of a crowded electric train