Most read stories

Circling '84

18231823 views33 comments33 favs

Other things are on my mind when the Tupperware lady says, "First, let's move your couch over by the door and the table here."

Husks

18221822 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.

The Bike Messenger on Lexington Avenue

18221822 views22 comments11 fav

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

Things I Will Miss Once the Apocalypse Is Done

18221822 views2525 comments1717 favs

The scent of fresh cut grass./ The idiot sense of accomplishment/ mowing the lawn can bring.

Kepler On The Bus

18221822 views2727 comments1919 favs

On the bus I sat like an ounce.

Letter to the Editor

18221822 views1212 comments99 favs

Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.

An Open Letter to my Fictionaut Family

18221822 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…

Before California Fell into the Sea

18221822 views22 comments11 fav

The trail wound through oak trees and climbed up a hill. The sun was high and hot whenever we came out from the cover of the trees. We stopped under a tree. “OK old man,” Leda said. She came to me and kissed me. Then she was unbuttoning my pants and kne

Hostage Festival

18221822 views22 comments00 favs

“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

Songlines

18221822 views1313 comments1111 favs

When the planes crashed,when the levees broke,when the ground shook,there was a song I dreamed of,humming subsonic,a chorus of voices and prayersuncorked like the little brown jugthat holds all the love and memories.In the outback, Aborigines believewe create the world by…

Moles & Scraps

18221822 views1717 comments1212 favs

A starved hunchbacked figure covered in blanket gently steers a one eyed dog along with him. A four legged shadow serving as his longtime companion against the all-consuming vacuum of the universe. A friend for all times.A thin scar runs from his cheekbone to…

Black Widow

18221822 views99 comments55 favs

Hair as black as a Raven’s wing. Dark eyes. You wore a black dress, too, my favorite color.

Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven?

18221822 views00 comments00 favs

I thought of Ruth burrowed deep in the nest of her closet and quickly jumped into the footlocker. I nearly stopped breathing as he entered his bunker.

On The Sly

18211821 views44 comments44 favs

She was a sucker punch.

Need

18211821 views99 comments1010 favs

I knew I needed to visit a beach / made entirely of sharks’ teeth

Poems Are Scary Things

18211821 views2323 comments1616 favs

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

Sidereal

18211821 views2929 comments1616 favs

"...they ran shirtless like pagans under southern stars."

When Borders was Alive and Well

18211821 views88 comments77 favs

I'd been working for two years as a barista in a Starbuck's in a giant, two-story Borders in an upscale mall on Rt. 355, a main artery between Washington D.C., and Frederick, Maryland. I'd finished my M.F.A in 2000 and was trying to build up steam for more grad…

We Threw These At Each Other

18211821 views55 comments22 favs

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.

Existential

18211821 views3333 comments1515 favs

To envy faith, to envy love --// is there a fate more hateful? Choices/ scatter like stars. Too many.

Brick Walls

18211821 views1919 comments1717 favs

A flash in seven chapters.

Sack of Meat

18211821 views1515 comments33 favs

The Nurse left work at five o’clock, walking down Dekalb Avenue toward Flatbush. He didn’t frequent the bar closest to the hospital, although he guessed other nurses and doctors from Brooklyn Hospital did. But he liked to pretend that he cared about h

Pollock's Last Snowflake?

18211821 views66 comments22 favs

The question posed a voluptuous riddle. Were these frenzied silhouettes gestures of Jackson Pollock’s dribble?

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

18211821 views88 comments66 favs

"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)

Stories in the Dirt

18201820 views1111 comments77 favs

I walk back home, alone and without the bus fare. Distancing myself from the shadows that float interminably against the drowsy sun. Where frightened boys often roam, going in circles against the long lines of epitaphs and gravestones. Puzzling…

I Was A Republican (For only one day, and it was a long, long, time ago.)

18201820 views1515 comments1010 favs

There was gonna be a rumble in our schoolyard. An outright brawl. It was gonna be just like Blackboard Jungle. Only real. Not some movie at the Duwamish Drive-In. Every boy in my school, it seemed like, was lined up outside except me. All the third and fourth graders…

Please Come to Boston? (Memoir)

18201820 views11 comment00 favs

I've been invited to speak at Emerson College in Boston—it will be the summer of 2012, and I'll be speaking on running an online literary magazine; in this case, my own, Anderbo.com.

The Stoplight

18201820 views66 comments55 favs

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

Her Dream Princes

18201820 views1010 comments44 favs

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

Even My Air Guitar Is Lame

18201820 views44 comments22 favs

I had the hair of a metal god, cracking it against the air whenever the stereo belched fists.