Most read stories

Three short-shorts

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Wake up! But it was already too late for Charles.

True Fear

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Flush, a sputter, and the water level rises, slowly. Flush again.

Bad Heart

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You died from a bad heart.

“Give me fifty words about a Beaver…”

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…Professor Wumbat begins.

Their Nipples

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The soft twin winds of peace and harmony flow through your nipples It is not milk that gives such flow but the whiff of life’s spirit, the wind of poetry the renewal and the silence of the love you give me I suck like a new

'So I fucked Beavis ... so WHAT??'

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[CAUTION: "DISINTEGRATION OF THE FUNCTIONING PSYCHE," IS, APPARENTLY, A "DEEPLY PERSONAL" EXPERIENCE!"]

Exchange Rates for Zynga

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When farming started in September, I thought of gambling, of my childhood best friend’s marriage ruined due to gambling, and of farming as a trope for living in the Midwest.

Not Wanting to Write

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I don't want / to write about the body indulged, desires / denied, tortures invented, pleasures innate

Still Life in a Bowl

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I sprinkle seaweed over the water and all twelve rise to feed. Two of them went down the hole but knew to come up. A toilet has mouths and caverns, not a bad place at all for fish.

The Coming of the Apocalypse

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The Operations Management Guru was visiting the twenty-fourth floor on Tuesday, and everyone at the company was wicked with fear.

The Stoplight

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We agreed I would go back up to the cabin for another bottle.

We Threw These At Each Other

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Jimmy wore a tie to top that torn green tee he toted every day, every other. He smelled of dirt, said he had a feeling we had watermelon somewhere since he caught a whiff from his room inside his house across the street.

MONSOON

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a beautiful cool quiet day

Washed Up

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At noon on a weekday in the off season, when the trickle of tourists who wandered into the Mermaid Curio Shoppe had died out completely, she walked in with wet hair, leaving tiny puddles on the floorboards.

Light Shot Water

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

Prompts

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

Independent Living

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

Hostage Festival

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“We’re prisoners,” Sean reminded the guard. “Prisoners of your military.” “You have never been treated as such.” Captain Hughes looked around the bar. “This festival is a celebration of you, of all of you. We pride ourselves on ou

Dry Rot

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Sometimes Seattle's the next thing to heaven. The sky's diamond blue, the sun's a caress; your whole soul can breathe. You know what the shouting's about. But the sun quickly fades to Protestant gray and the gray last a long…

Gathering

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In the office supply store on Union, Jeremy, the stock boy, shelves tubs of rubber bands. Tubs with an easy-access pop-top and a see-through container. If Hendy saw these tubs, she would think these particular rubber bands resembled anorexic gummy-worms,

Picking

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You hear the thrum of blowflies first...

The Brazen Bull

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History is replete with brutally imaginative techniques of torture and execution, but I am the only death machine that doubles as a musical instrument.

Dear Envelope Said the Stamp

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I have no more use for the beautiful words you used to like so much for me tosend you alone. See my feathers donot so much hide me now as giveme away; I tend to feel farfrom home. Forgive me this. Theend jumped by me quicker than anorange flower cricket on its…

How Elm Trees Die

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I had felt suddenly lighter and next thing I knew I was watching Leonard Tucker and Sister William from somewhere near the ceiling. I saw myself, too, at my desk, holding my songbook out in front of me like everyone else.

The Bike Messenger on Lexington Avenue

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The Bike Messenger on Lexington Avenue Comes to rest taking a moment in the falling rain slowly massaging the veins at the top of his bald head Cracking his neck while the yellow cabs start honking behind him Unwilling to mov

The Letter

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You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world

My Brother Outside a Cantina at Night, Mexico

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in his thin, swanky black leather jacket out on the town at night in Mexico with his girlfriend

Doctor, My Eyes

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...it was just my heart stnging through my eyes...

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

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Right away, like toadstools, there were crackpot theories. The first: that kids out on the lake dock, against fire department warnings...

A Taste For Music

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“Nothing we have here can stop them,” the Lumi said, “We were hoping there might be something in your world we might try.” “Even if we had something, how would I get it to you? ”We are working on that, in the meantime, will you help us?” I