Most read stories

February Fifth

20222022 views44 comments22 favs

We've worked silence over / Like pros, our best work together.

Night Swim

20222022 views99 comments33 favs

She wrapped her legs around him. His hand barely held the rope and later he could not have said if it happened above or below the water’s surface.

Death Masking Love

20222022 views44 comments33 favs

She brought the ends of her fingers to her mouth and moistened them in her warm saliva. The whorls of her prints glistened in the harsh light of the room, but it wasn't her own outlines she was interested in raising. His hand lay outstretched in his…

The Caveman Attends the Symphony Without His Club

20212021 views88 comments33 favs

“Would you consider renewing for the next season?” “We’re not interested.” “Can I ask you why?” I considered my reply. I was thinking of mincing my words. The man on the other end of the line seemed, how should I put this, somewhat s

Uterus

20212021 views1919 comments1111 favs

I describe mine as uterine-based hysteria or Sex Test.

How to Forget

20212021 views44 comments11 fav

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

Last Poem

20212021 views2020 comments1818 favs

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

Love Story, a Sequel

20212021 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.

Elegy For the Old Republic

20212021 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.

An Open Letter to my Fictionaut Family

20202020 views1313 comments99 favs

Dear Fictionaut Family,Some of you may recognize my name and remember reading my work, some of you may have joined more recently and be wondering what the hell I'm doing addressing you directly. I began writing on Fictionaut in 2010, during four years as I was fragmenting…

Life Story

20202020 views99 comments77 favs

A man lives with a woman he loves enough to live with, but not enough to marry and not enough for kids. He knows he could love others enough to marry, enough for kids, but he's not the kind of man to find those women when he's with this woman.Sometimes “love”…

'Introduction' to LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT

20202020 views00 comments00 favs

Was Sligo an unfeeling privacy-violator or an uncannily-feeling empath, privy to the deepest longings of those whose lives he came in contact with? [...] Sligo's grave is as silent as these pages ultimately would be if they were left unread.

Closed Curve

20202020 views22 comments00 favs

What the heck to believe in??

Scents

20202020 views11 comment11 fav

"Ah, finally the rain stopped pouring!" She opens the window to let the sticky air out of the house. The colours outside have changed. The air is clear and the sky turns into light pink while the sun is drowning at the horizon. She takes a deep breath. The…

Lethargy

20192019 views55 comments22 favs

‘Your hands are very clean’ she said to the furniture salesman. His name was Morrison. "After Jim" Morrison Pentworthy. His father specialized in Doors.

They Would Judge His Trespasses

20192019 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.

Whale Lessons

20192019 views1717 comments1010 favs

Even if your heart is as large as a small car, your tongue as heavy as two grown men—even then—you will have to carry it with you wherever you go.

Crane Man

20192019 views11 comment00 favs

Inside my high-rise studio apartment there are only three locations where Crane Man can't see me. The bathroom is one—although he watches me go in and he watches me come out. Crane Man does a lot of watching. Sometimes it seems he spends more time looking…

Arcana Magi - c.21: The World Stage

20192019 views00 comments00 favs

The old mage said nothing. She did not even return the complement. All she had was disgust in her eyes as she looked at the grown men and women. To her they had no hearts.

Phantom head syndrome

20182018 views33 comments22 favs

The Bird King suffers from phantom head syndrome. Ever since his decapitation by a critic, he has felt pain where his head used to be. Sometimes it wakes him in the night. It's so excruciating, he fumbles for a saw. But alas! there's nothing to chop off.He's seen every…

I A Dog

20182018 views44 comments11 fav

I am a dog – four legs, a tail, a carefree enough manner, I do this, I do that, get into fights, sniff the ground and so on

Peterson Park

20182018 views2222 comments1717 favs

The bungalow was unlocked. The screen door was unhooked. The trout on the counter was deboned.

My Love For You Is Real

20182018 views00 comments00 favs

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.

January 1980: Avenue A and St. Mark’s Place, East Village

20182018 views1616 comments1414 favs

In the St. Mark's Bar and Grill romance is a speedy thing, a blurred whir of grope, kiss, connect. The tricky thing is timing: to leave in time for the boozy love of the hour to carry through to full, naked contact. Some succeed of course. Others overstay, hang past the…

How I Made My Fortune

20182018 views00 comments00 favs

At the time I first went to work for Mr. Byron my family was in a sorrowful state. My dad, much as I can recall, was one of those roving kinds, called himself a carpenter or contractor, depending on the kind of job he was aspiring to, and was subject to f

Summer Reading

20182018 views55 comments33 favs

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

Ibambe

20182018 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.

Toward a Critique of Everything Existing

20182018 views2121 comments55 favs

You got a lot of people, out there

Boredom & Ennui

20172017 views00 comments00 favs

I had a weird feeling I had just validated his behavior — provided another tile in the mosaic of his ego and self-esteem — by doing nothing more than entering this hall of mirrors, and reflecting.

Stupid's Rising Up

20172017 views99 comments11 fav

Stupid's rising up, I see. Melting all the intellect. I before E, except after C, but that's not how the alphabet goes.