Most read stories

Night Swim

20142014 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.

Husks

20132013 views22 comments22 favs

She would have moved on to the next guy in the next bar, the one who looked like danger on a stick.

Phantom head syndrome

20132013 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…

Better Days

20132013 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.

Men Respond to Women's Tennis Grunts With Armpit Farts

20132013 views00 comments00 favs

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.

They Would Judge His Trespasses

20132013 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

20132013 views2020 comments1818 favs

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

Why the Woodpecker Laughs

20132013 views88 comments77 favs

Once upon a time, before there was Prairie, there was Swamp. Therein lived Salamander and Snake. High above them, in the tops of Cypresses lived Woodpecker.

Arcana Magi - c.21: The World Stage

20132013 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.

Summer Reading

20132013 views55 comments33 favs

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

Aerobics 6 p.m.

20122012 views33 comments11 fav

Dizzy but still alive Inside this conversation I ask if you have a sister And if she'll know me If I'm with you.

Some Kind of Change

20122012 views2626 comments66 favs

She was flying back in the morning, returning to a long-distance boyfriend I believed she had cheated on while she was here but didn’t ask about because I thought it would have been too obvious and somehow ungentlemanly.

How I Made My Fortune

20122012 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

Resolutions

20122012 views33 comments33 favs

Portions of my heart and bones

Closed Curve

20122012 views22 comments00 favs

What the heck to believe in??

Scents

20122012 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…

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

20122012 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

Stupid's Rising Up

20112011 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.

Prompts

20112011 views1616 comments1313 favs

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

Lethargy

20112011 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.

An Open Letter to my Fictionaut Family

20112011 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…

February Fifth

20112011 views44 comments22 favs

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

Like An Endless Rain

20112011 views22 comments11 fav

Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.

Me And My Liberal Friends

20102010 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

Dr. Wong

20102010 views1111 comments55 favs

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

Impromptu Retranscriptions from the 'Song of Songs' (erotic poetry - explicit language)

20102010 views44 comments33 favs

I. When my lips mouth yours where they are…

Whale Lessons

20102010 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.

Just like I read the news

20102010 views66 comments66 favs

She sang will you still need me

Crane Man

20102010 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…

tears, et cetera

20102010 views66 comments66 favs

ghosts are local plagues/of unexpended grief—tears/can't be bodiless.