Most read stories

To Kill a Deer

19831983 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

Breakfast Dance - a 55 word story

19831983 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…

Ibambe

19831983 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.

Buoyancy

19821982 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

Lethargy

19821982 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.

Zumba, Meet Depression

19821982 views2121 comments1212 favs

The decision is made. I am going to a Zumba class. What better way to achieve behavior modification than to leave my TV and fuzzy bear slippers behind for some hot Latin aerobics in a strip-mall? I try to pull my hair into a ponytail that will make the two inches of…

Crane Man

19821982 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…

Night Swim

19821982 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.

Sack of Meat

19821982 views1515 comments33 favs

The Nurse left work at five o’clock, walking down Dekalb Avenue toward Flatbush. He didn’t frequent the bar closest to the hospital, although he guessed other nurses and doctors from Brooklyn Hospital did. But he liked to pretend that he cared about h

Middle Age

19821982 views1818 comments1414 favs

There are no city-chewed streets,/ only white and lilac blooming dogwood trees.

Pink

19811981 views88 comments22 favs

The midsummer sky is black above us when I hear Dad say my name, quiet like I’ve never heard before. I let my hands drop away from my face and crawl towards him.

This is Why We Can Never Have Nice Things

19811981 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…

Light Shot Water

19811981 views99 comments44 favs

Where I grew up, you did not venture casually into ocean waters.

Squishy

19811981 views44 comments22 favs

Martin named it “Squishy” for two reasons. The first reason was because it was the noise it made when it came out of the hole in his basement. The second is because it’s what it did to Grandfather...

They Would Judge His Trespasses

19811981 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.

Last Poem

19811981 views2020 comments1818 favs

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

The not so great Popsicle caper

19811981 views2222 comments88 favs

"Ha ha!" I said triumphantly, "I've got some left and you don't!"

MONSOON

19811981 views55 comments33 favs

a beautiful cool quiet day

On The Sly

19801980 views44 comments44 favs

She was a sucker punch.

Prompts

19801980 views1616 comments1313 favs

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

Eighty-eight

19801980 views77 comments66 favs

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

Just like I read the news

19801980 views66 comments66 favs

She sang will you still need me

A Walk

19801980 views77 comments33 favs

I suppose the lazy trees would have a thing or two to say about love

How I Made My Fortune

19801980 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

My Wife, My Love

19801980 views2121 comments1818 favs

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

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

19801980 views88 comments66 favs

"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

19801980 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

Phantom head syndrome

19791979 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…

Touching Jim

19791979 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.

The Mitzvah

19791979 views1717 comments1111 favs

There were only two students in the sculpture class: an 86 year-old Jewish woman and myself.