Most read stories

Last Poem

19661966 views2020 comments1818 favs

or the voice that wants/ to be inscribed/ forgets the sounds

Window

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

RETIREMENT

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Men have a way of doing that, Lord, why? I always thought retirement means you get to sleep longer. Nope He must arise early, make breakfast, after 40 years of eating mine. Next, he insists on coming with me to the market. When I try to…

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

19661966 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

Circling '84

19661966 views33 comments33 favs

Other things are on my mind when the Tupperware lady says, "First, let's move your couch over by the door and the table here."

Jack's

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We're not here for idle chit-chat, or ESPN, or fish tacos.

This is Why We Can Never Have Nice Things

19651965 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…

Me And My Liberal Friends

19651965 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

Prompts

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Write a poem in which your father is a dog and you are his leash.

Kepler On The Bus

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On the bus I sat like an ounce.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst

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The things we do for books, she thought.

April Haiku

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A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

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

Black Wheat, 2

19641964 views55 comments22 favs

They are really living (they) say things they don't mean . . . Do not know what they say Take the path without heart, seeing the image . . . The moon rises above them It does not move their blood Nothing calls out to their blo

What She Gave to the Sea

19641964 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

19641964 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.

A Time for Peace

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When she opens the door, I say hi and introduce her to my friend, a bottle of J.T.S. Brown. She laughs and tells me to come on in before I fall down.

Breakfast Dance - a 55 word story

19641964 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…

Toward a Critique of Everything Existing

19641964 views2121 comments55 favs

You got a lot of people, out there

Tumbalalaika

19631963 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

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.

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

Better Days

19631963 views66 comments55 favs

I peeled off a hundred. For the screwdriver, I said. The kid shook his head, made a pushing-away gesture. You need it worse’n I do right now, he said.

Tortoise

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Seven black and orange Tortoise-shell kittens nursed in a crate the day Sue returned from rehab, to her parent's Atlanta home.

Rust

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We lived in a white and mint green trailer in the woods. I was 23. The hanging of the clothes on the line made me feel kind of famous in the eyes of nature

They Would Judge His Trespasses

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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.

Apology + Opportunity

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What I need to secure from you now are two swears on this copy of Camp Bylaws for the Hearty and True that you won’t let my misinformed intrusion dampen your beginnings.

The Night

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

Dr. Wong

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Hippy health food. It all began with Hannah’s homemade granola.

His Laugh is My Yellow (or explaining skin color to a six-year-old boy)

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Max is the color of burnt caramelized sugar the sweet crust that decorates our bright enameled pots.