Most read stories

Not Wanting to Write

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

Upon Learning the Fetus Has Fingernails

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Upon learning the fetus has fingernails, Missy texts her boyfriend: It has nails! He won’t reply because he’s just left for war, but she does it just the same.

Though the Heart be Still as Loving

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With my heart preserved, I shoved a handful of baubles back in its place: some pages torn from my favorite books, a bass guitar string, a butane lighter, a shot of vodka. I stitched myself back up and left the roof in favor of the attic, where I hung my s

Crane Man

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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…

Root in a Bottle

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He had expected more -- at least his grandfather's classic Packard touring car.

Forgive Me Mamma

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His footing unsure and his clothes covered in vomit, he grabs the railing and stumbles up the three steps. He pulls off his shirt, finds a cleaner area on the puke-covered garment, wipes sweat off his forehead, dripping wet from the humid, stormy night, a

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

A mostly true story about a swine flu shot, with references to 3 ABC television shows and 1 Will Smith movie

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Yellow tape marks a walkway that was previously unknown. Caution, caution. Lounge turned waiting room for a ballroom turned infirmary. An entrance, an exit, caution, caution. The line is of amusement park ride length. But no roller coaster at the end, only an antidote…

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

Brick Walls

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A flash in seven chapters.

Closed Curve

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What the heck to believe in??

Bound

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“You have an impressive pair there,” he says, hands warm as he cups them. “Shame they’re on a man though.”

Kramer vs. Kramer

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Kramer wraps himself around Kramer’s legs, from behind, then lifts him and tips him up and over and down, per their rehearsed routine.

Tuesday Night

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She comes in with her white bag with its floral patterns scattered, almost accidentally, all around it

Mad Love

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No fear of that, / he assured her,

Peterson Park

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The bungalow was unlocked. The screen door was unhooked. The trout on the counter was deboned.

Whale Lessons

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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.

Fool of Me

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This no man's island I'm perched high above isn't always so beautiful to the casual beholder of newly printed maps. Oh don't go and get your clouds all wrong. Puffed or thin, everything I say I believe in is a real feeling, until the music dies…

Drum Naked

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Where truth is revealed To all, transparency In policy, including The REAL reasons We are at war.

Everyone Is Going Away

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“I don’t know what’s going on there,” Hank, who hated his name and wanted a more Biblical name because those names (Jeremiah! Matthew! David!)—although common—sound ominous, said as he pointed up to the top of the apartment building that housed the whores

No Algebra Again Today Haiku

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Our lives depend on/ engineers

Martyr

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The waitress says, “That’s a memory,” as the smoke dances around her head.

Her Dream Princes

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They live a simple life..two solitudes by lamplight.

Preliminary

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After court, the three of us skipped third period, walked down to the river and huddled under the 6th Street Bridge.

Floating Away

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Soon, she will turn to liquid

Old Photo, 1948 or so

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I’m maybe only four. Not smoking cigarettes found in street gutters yet. That will come the next year, when I’m five. Maybe when I’m six, and Andy’s five, my pal from across the street. That’s my tricycle parked behind this pack of kids that look to be ne

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

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—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

Redacted.

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Almost on cue, Xavier emerges and is in the vendor’s face. “X,” as he is known around here, is indoctrinating the obvious newbie on the merits of showing up earlier and the logistics of placeholders and markers.

In the Jukebox Light

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At first we envied Tom and Betty’s dancing. Friday nights at The Big Club, Saturdays at Mickey’s, and none of us can remember a time we saw them in the arms of another partner.