Most read stories

Eighty-eight

20052005 views77 comments66 favs

She realised that things you can't prove can be more intimate than the things you know to be true.

Summertime

20052005 views1111 comments77 favs

I am so happy to see winter almost gone

Window

20052005 views1717 comments1010 favs

Can you write a 250-word story without using the letter "e"? Ruth's back is curving forwards, folding, softly caving into tomorrow.

Headstone III

20052005 views2828 comments2121 favs

My only brother. Frantic flesh clings to bone.

Moles & Scraps

20052005 views1717 comments1212 favs

A starved hunchbacked figure covered in blanket gently steers a one eyed dog along with him. A four legged shadow serving as his longtime companion against the all-consuming vacuum of the universe. A friend for all times.A thin scar runs from his cheekbone to…

Thick Rib of the Lamentation Animal

20052005 views55 comments66 favs

This violin of oneself, this rough strum of I, arc of wing over thick rib. This masturbatory chirping like the meat of God clenched in your teeth, an apostrophe giving aloneness possession over the inarticulate, a bridge between chords.

Elegy For the Old Republic

20052005 views33 comments22 favs

You call the shit in this paper news? ‘Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform, The Truth About Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter.' Seriously? Enough about Elvis already.

A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING

20052005 views11 comment11 fav

My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.

True Fear

20052005 views44 comments22 favs

Flush, a sputter, and the water level rises, slowly. Flush again.

American Triptych

20042004 views1010 comments66 favs

It’s always fun and easy/ to punish the poor

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

20042004 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."

A monkey puzzle rocket burst

20042004 views77 comments44 favs

The things we do for books, she thought.

Witness

20042004 views1515 comments99 favs

The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.

Love Story, a Sequel

20042004 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.

13 Halloweens

20042004 views22 comments22 favs

1. The Walking Heart Attack Man has two outfits. In the summer he dresses in a short sleeve checkered button down shirt and high waisted Bermuda shorts with sandals. In the winter he wears dark pants and loafers with a gray corduroy coat…

Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven?

20042004 views00 comments00 favs

I thought of Ruth burrowed deep in the nest of her closet and quickly jumped into the footlocker. I nearly stopped breathing as he entered his bunker.

Hat, Mouse, Tortoise, Zen

20032003 views1717 comments55 favs

I try to help my pet-mouse by dangling cheese from a piece of string in front of him. Or by making meow sounds. Sometimes, my pet-mouse wins, sometimes the hamster with the great body.

Tumbalalaika

20032003 views66 comments44 favs

When the arguing started, their voices would get louder and louder, till they broke into my dreams. That night, I woke and listened in the dark for what felt like a very long time. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. For one thing, they never

Buoyancy

20032003 views22 comments11 fav

When I ate with my girls, Bliss and Victoria, I would lift my head up and look at us eating until I could imagine him chiding me. “Our daughters are looking more and more like you each day,” he’d say. “Fat!” I didn’t feel like eating when I thought abo

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.

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, xlvi - liv

20032003 views1212 comments99 favs

the Great Way itself is very smooth and straight,/but folks take to the challenge of rough, wild roads.

Something Jazzy

20032003 views1414 comments1313 favs

. . . clinging to life in a shroud of winter air. It veered up five flights to a sweltering summer night on the roof . . .

Book Killer

20032003 views1010 comments77 favs

Sometimes after bookbinding for a few hours at the hand-sewing table, Jillie would, after scraping her knife too roughly over the glue of an old book's spine, feel not like a resurrector of literature, as she should, but a killer. Not a calculating or

Fat Man in a Blizzard

20022002 views1717 comments1515 favs

There he was. Minnesota Fats, short and pudgy, jowly and blond-haired.

The Crescent Caretaker

20022002 views22 comments11 fav

Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole where electric, shoeless uncles allocate their copper goulashes to catch white dripwater.

Europe, 1960

20022002 views2323 comments2222 favs

The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

To Kill a Deer

20022002 views33 comments33 favs

On September 12th, 2011, the ban on deer hunting became official. Apparently, the hunting and killing of deer had become too cruel. The ban had been a long time in the making. Ever since man began hunting deer way back in the day—somewhere between a fe

Take-Home Quiz

20012001 views44 comments22 favs

1.) Please discuss any real-life problems you may have encountered having to do with the concept of “the look” or “the male gaze” as propounded in some of the feminist criticism readings we've done thus far this semester.

El Gabacho

20012001 views00 comments00 favs

She turned to the window, staring into the dark. A smile crept to her lips and she laughed softly. “No, we can’t. I’m Mexican and we speak Spanish.” The smile vanished and she moved to leave. “No sé qué decir… sólo puedo llorar. Nada

Woman Gives Birth At Cafe, Refuses To Leave Until Latte Finished

20002000 views11 comment00 favs

There was a man crying, walking his dog and a woman drove by on a flat tire They brought coffee to the tables in large glasses on white saucers There’d be long silver spoons with which to stir in strong