Most read stories

Prompts

19711971 views1616 comments1313 favs

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

Poems Are Scary Things

19711971 views2323 comments1616 favs

They will take you, naked, and put their tongues and fingers into intimate, erogenous openings

They Would Judge His Trespasses

19711971 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.

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, xlvi - liv

19711971 views1212 comments99 favs

the Great Way itself is very smooth and straight,/but folks take to the challenge of rough, wild roads.

Dr. Wong

19711971 views1111 comments55 favs

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

The Crescent Caretaker

19711971 views22 comments11 fav

Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole where electric, shoeless uncles allocate their copper goulashes to catch white dripwater.

Exasperation Management

19701970 views1313 comments1313 favs

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

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

Men Respond to Women's Tennis Grunts With Armpit Farts

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An armpit fart is a simulated sound of flatulence produced by creating a pocket of air between the armpit of a partially raised arm and the hand, then swiftly closing this pocket by bringing the arm close to the torso.

Summer Reading

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

Phil's Last Stand

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Phil was scared. Not of his own shadow, but of the three men from ConAgra who'd dropped a duffel bag of green outside his den the week before.

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.

To Kill a Deer

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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

MONSOON

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a beautiful cool quiet day

The Art of Madness

19691969 views77 comments33 favs

He had an addiction to elevating himself to higher levels of potential: some would call this ambition.

The Mitzvah

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

Better Days

19691969 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.

Life Story

19691969 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”…

Apology + Opportunity

19691969 views44 comments11 fav

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.

Black Wheat, 2

19691969 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

Happy Hour

19691969 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

19691969 views2121 comments1818 favs

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

RETIREMENT

19691969 views2222 comments77 favs

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…

Phantom head syndrome

19681968 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…

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.

The List

19681968 views1616 comments1616 favs

There were one hundred titles on the list. One hundred books that could neither be assigned nor put on a recommended reading list.

Anti

19681968 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

19681968 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…

The Burning Gulf

19681968 views88 comments44 favs

None of us ever thought this would happen.

Night Swim

19681968 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.