Most read stories

Three short-shorts

19541954 views1212 comments99 favs

Wake up! But it was already too late for Charles.

This is Why We Can Never Have Nice Things

19531953 views66 comments55 favs

At age eleven, I murder the coffee table. I gouge with every available implement: thumbtacks, Lefty scissors, the plastic hand of my Barbie accomplice (who really should have known better). It is a slow death. In the end, there is nowhere to hide the body. When I am…

Self-Portrait of Someone Else (excerpt)

19531953 views77 comments33 favs

Recently I think I became someone else. When the alarm clock rings in the morning, it sounds sharper than usual; getting up, my feet don't seem to quite touch the floor; looking into my bathroom mirror, my face seems to be melting, sliding, my eyes dri

They Would Judge His Trespasses

19531953 views77 comments22 favs

They waited until the crowd was gone before making their move. Gill kept watch while Warren bypassed the lock. “You sure about this?” Gill whispered. Voices echoed down the hall of the museum.

The Night

19531953 views77 comments44 favs

her parents were gone they sat on the love seat side by side saying nothing the longest time

Ghostriders and rainbows

19531953 views44 comments22 favs

Ghostriders in the syand rainbows in my mindor was itrainbow in the skyghostriders in my mind?I can't remember ...And apparently this body is not 200 characters long, so I add some text so this pearl too can be read (ahum) My body is only 170 characters long, snif,…

What She Gave to the Sea

19521952 views1010 comments55 favs

1.There's a young woman in a nightclub seated next to a window out of which she watches the slow descent of snow, illuminated by strategic lights. She imagines herself falling with those flakes. Her friend has left her for the dance floor. The young woman is…

We Threw These At Each Other

19521952 views55 comments22 favs

Jimmy wore a tie to top that torn green tee he toted every day, every other. He smelled of dirt, said he had a feeling we had watermelon somewhere since he caught a whiff from his room inside his house across the street.

What's Wrong With Stella by Starlight?

19521952 views1111 comments33 favs

Suzie went on to become an anchorwoman in Los Angeles after college. She had tiny bruises on her feet where she’d shoot heroin since she didn’t want tracks to show on her arms, where they’d ruin the effect of a little black cocktail dress

The Burning Gulf

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None of us ever thought this would happen.

Summer Reading

19521952 views55 comments33 favs

The summer everyone read Faulkner, I read Hemingway. Out of spite.

Happy Hour

19521952 views1919 comments1818 favs

We were in the car more than anywhere else. A few days driving, then a few days to get back home.

My Wife, My Love

19521952 views2121 comments1818 favs

When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.

Elegy For the Old Republic

19521952 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.

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

19521952 views55 comments11 fav

The light against the nylon walls of the tent gets me feeling a little down. The air's wet inside, but it's warm. The whole world outside is creaking and chirping, everything that wakes up with the dawn's first tepid blue light does so and starts making n

Ibambe

19521952 views1616 comments1313 favs

If this was the day when the bribes of whiskey and US dollars would fail to work. If on this day a black bag, smelling of shit and fear, would be pulled over his head – the bloodied roots of a knocked out tooth tickling his neck.

A Marriage of Bodies

19511951 views11 comment11 fav

In sleep their bodies drift between the sheets until they find each other.

Touching Jim

19511951 views1313 comments1212 favs

He introduced me to key lime pie, and for this alone I would have loved him forever. It was an innocent time for me, and I was easy to please.

Me And My Liberal Friends

19511951 views77 comments77 favs

“Thank God The Yogurt Store Was Open!”. I knew this would cause cynics to seethe about me and my #FirstWorldProblems. While those less with the times or from many years of vanilla ancestry, might become racist themselves, indicating that I was suffering f

Tumbalalaika

19511951 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

Exasperation Management

19511951 views1313 comments1313 favs

We honor fierce, quick, cunning/ thought-in-action types

April Haiku

19511951 views2020 comments1010 favs

A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

A Bear Story

19511951 views33 comments33 favs

In the spring, my father would dress for class in a bear costume and chase students around campus.

El Gabacho

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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

Tribal Elder

19511951 views22 comments11 fav

"Look at this," she says while thumbing through the guide book, "look at what we can do on Jooga Booga island. Says here, 'Parasailing over the sapphire blue sea, one soars hundred of feet above water-skiers, boaters, and snorkelers, and the picture is b

Breakfast Dance - a 55 word story

19511951 views1414 comments66 favs

The handsome man at the opposite table swivels his head at the tall cool slim blonde entering the breakfast cafe. The ordinary woman sitting with him adjusts her chair accordingly. She pretends to ignore her husband's distraction, smoothes her hair, licks her…

How to Forget

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Refuse to go to the church service, even though you already missed the funeral. Tell his mother something came up. Call his phone over and over, just to hear his voice, until his mother asks you to stop. Make a recording of his voicemail. Delete it an

My Love For You Is Real

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Caroline smiles before reaching out to touch a shapeless shadow dancing on the wall, closing her eyes as the bumps in the primer serve brail to oncoming dreams.

The Bird King in Love

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1The Bird King has fallen in lovewith a radiator.He adoresher pockmarked skin,her neurotic arias,her coldness,her impulsive warmth. 2Tiring of his dalliance with the radiator,the Bird King woos an armchair.She's amply upholsteredand groans dreamilywhen he sits on…

Hot.

19501950 views33 comments22 favs

She was legally blind. He felt comfortable knowing she couldn’t see him very clearly.