Most read stories

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…

Life Story

19821982 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”…

Anti

19821982 views99 comments55 favs

“What do you call this place?” I didn't really want to talk much in there. For some reason, talking felt too—linear. The words seemed to have a kind of reverberation into associations that seemed somewhat meaningless at the time.”

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…

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.

To Kill a Deer

19821982 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

19821982 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…

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.

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...

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!"

Night Swim

19811981 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.

On The Sly

19801980 views44 comments44 favs

She was a sucker punch.

This is Why We Can Never Have Nice Things

19801980 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…

Prompts

19801980 views1616 comments1313 favs

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

They Would Judge His Trespasses

19801980 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.

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.

MONSOON

19801980 views55 comments33 favs

a beautiful cool quiet day

The Mitzvah

19791979 views1717 comments1111 favs

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

Tatters

19791979 views99 comments88 favs

They sat on the couch, and he tried to unbutton her buttons, but she fended him off.

Coffee Shop

19791979 views2424 comments1717 favs

He wore his hip in his hips, his lipsShe wanted to know if he would lick the edgesWhen he pulled the coffee cup from his mouthA bit of foam clung to his moustacheShe watched it there, wondering if he wouldTwirl it off with his fingersOr lick it, his tongue darting out like…

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

19791979 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

19791979 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