Most read stories

Last Poem

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

Headstone III

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My only brother. Frantic flesh clings to bone.

A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING

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My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.

Woman Gives Birth At Cafe, Refuses To Leave Until Latte Finished

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There was a man crying, walking his dog and a woman drove by on a flat tire They brought coffee to the tables in large glasses on white saucers There’d be long silver spoons with which to stir in strong

Prompts

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

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.

Some Kind of Change

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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.

Summer Reading

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

What The Hell Nationality Are You?

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It’s confusing enough to grow up in a place like America, a country without definitive culture, except for ranch dressing and reality TV, but it’s even worse to grow up half one thing, half another, christened a hyphenation of names without connection to

Toward a Critique of Everything Existing

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You got a lot of people, out there

A Country of Husbands

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The first husband was young and lovely. He had a little nose and long fingers he used for things like planting begonias in my clay pot. I did not do flowers. So that was nice.

Of Life

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beware the slice of the knife cutting like a curious comet blasting through solar systems down the throat of the bad ass milky way

Vernon, Last Seen In Hawaii

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Dear Bess — I go to the First Assembly of God's church. (a Praising Spirit-Filled Fellowship.) It is in Maui. Dr. James Morocco, Senior Pastor. He has been pastoring the church for over twenty years. My, what a big change I am finding in my new l

Aerobics 6 p.m.

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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.

WE NEVER

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No news spreads faster than news of a death. Word of the death of a child can be heard simultaneously in a thousand places. . . the word spread by telephone, in back yards from clothesline to clothesline, with whispers in grocery stores, in the looks on faces stunned into…

Independent Living

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The transformation in their domineering, sour mother revised her children’s memories of their childhoods.

Europe, 1960

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The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Epitaph N+1

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We die in order to get some rest

Escalation

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Don't fall to sleep.

Hot Cocoa and Bourbon

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Walking into the living room and next to the tree, he handed his wife Kathy her Minnie and plopped himself on the couch. Their three kids, two girls and the youngest a boy, tore through the wrapping paper like a pack of rabid wolves tearing through a deer

Elegy For the Old Republic

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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.

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

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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

End of Chapter Questions for an Imaginary Textbook

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Describe how like or unlike a vagina a peach pit is, using no anatomical words.

Life Story

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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”…

Witness

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The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.

Where the ocean ends

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For my Dad Happy Father's Day!

Breakfast Dance - a 55 word story

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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…

HUSBAND (opening door & shouting): 'Hon . . . WHAT'S FOR DINNER?'

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WIFE (calling back from kitchen): "Dick Cheney's penis!"

Pink

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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.

Roomies

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“I am NOT a hooker.” “What exactly are you, then?” Marlene raised her slim eyebrows. Her almond shaped eyes and high-cut bangs gave her the appearance of a 1950s Barbie doll. “Well…” I stirred my coffee and looked down. I wasn't sure wh