Most read stories

And We Sell Apples 1977

18161816 views11 comment11 fav

I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."

The Forefinger of Lenin

18161816 views1010 comments44 favs

Who puts Vaseline on the forefinger of Lenin? I want to know

Peach

18161816 views44 comments11 fav

"What's that smell?" Osama glares at me from the front seat of the Trans Am. "What smell?" I say. "You smell like a diaper. Are you wearing a diaper?" Osama and Peach both laugh at me. "No... maybe, its my Baby Soft perfume. Is it too strong?"

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

18151815 views1010 comments66 favs

—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

Hats for Houses

18151815 views1111 comments66 favs

It is certain. The roofs are hats for the houses because you wear a hat in the rain or the snow or even and sometimes especially the sun. The houses are curious. They keep their hats on at night. The downspouts for run-off water are strands of hair such as…

Lesson 38

18151815 views1414 comments33 favs

You have a house (plural, as in Spain)

Casual

18151815 views1111 comments1010 favs

Slip me in Between the cracks in your schedule Between the sheets of your bed Between your memories and your fears Between your eyes and the moon where I'll twinkle at you Slip me in somewhere, I won't disturb you Won't make you want to push me away Let…

Letters from the Aslyum (2)

18151815 views44 comments11 fav

Leo, leo, leo, leo, the word itself imprinted on my brain, carved with a pearl handled blade into my cerebral cortex, into the medulla, burrowed deep into my dreams, I miss your kissing.

Christ walks the streets of Venice

18151815 views1212 comments1010 favs

Christ walks the streets of Venice,/has long since become a regular . . .

Something for you

18141814 views66 comments11 fav

Bearing the smell of paper on her fingertips. Ink in her hair.

The Tall Man’s Secret

18141814 views88 comments55 favs

For the next two hours, Ed goes nonchalantly about his business, buck naked the whole time. He putters around the house, writes e mails, waters plants, vacuums the rug and sweeps the porch. I pretend to ignore his nudity

I've Been Here Before

18141814 views11 comment00 favs

I’ve been here before. it wasn’t you though— it was her before you, and then she before her … before you.

Rams, NFL's Smartest Team, Forget to Make Playoffs

18141814 views1010 comments33 favs

“I was looking for the review of the Alvin Ailey dance company when I noticed something in the sports pages,” says the 300-pound center. “All of a sudden it hit me–I should have been playing football."

Broadbeach Bargain Bin

18141814 views00 comments00 favs

The ice in Mum’s drink clinked as she rolled the glass across her forehead. “Ith that a gay thing or ith that a vampire thing? ’Coth I’m finding thith all a bit confuthing.”

Drunk Sonnet (for Meg Tuite)

18141814 views1919 comments1313 favs

perjured like a fickle impulse

Death Masking Love

18141814 views44 comments33 favs

She brought the ends of her fingers to her mouth and moistened them in her warm saliva. The whorls of her prints glistened in the harsh light of the room, but it wasn't her own outlines she was interested in raising. His hand lay outstretched in his…

This, About The Man I Met Out Here In Nearly Nowhere

18141814 views33 comments22 favs

Out here in nearly nowhere I met this man. About him I know something something, and no one can tell me otherwise.

Wattle and Daub - 2

18141814 views1212 comments66 favs

~ ! ~

Alias

18141814 views66 comments33 favs

I can tell you all about rock bottom.

Fool of Me

18141814 views77 comments66 favs

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…

I’m Sure They’ll Have an App for That

18131813 views77 comments44 favs

Already they’re taking away my books, supplanting them with Kindles and Nooks.

THERE IS AN I.V. OF THE TIMES I HAVE THOUGHT, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT" AND IT IS SWELLING MY VEINS

18131813 views1010 comments77 favs

god bless my shapeless head. we are good at becoming older. i feel incredibly negative all the time.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 1

18131813 views88 comments77 favs

Before he was Francesco Martinelli

Whale Lessons

18131813 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.

Torn

18121812 views11 comment22 favs

My parents were married for forty five years. “A lifetime,” is how the rabbi at my mother's funeral describes it. The man says it with such a tone of familiarity, of genuine sadness, that one might think he has known and adored my parents all their lives. But…

Fair-Weather Best Friends Forever

18121812 views22 comments33 favs

“How scared?” Mikey said, not wanting to find out, and already looking pretty nervous.

The Great Bank Run of 1912

18121812 views1212 comments66 favs

She bought her first gerbil at the age of nine. She wondered if he would die from endless logrolling. When he died from natural causes, she refused to bury him and kept a distance from the first boy who kissed her--Thomas J. Hobbit. The next year a twister swept…

MY BOYFRIEND WAS A LUNATIC

18121812 views44 comments22 favs

Had I scoured all five boroughs of New York I couldn’t have found a more perfect imperfect object for my affections. Morgan was crazy as a loon, with the common sense of a mackerel and the emotional stability of a canary. But believing love could conquer

Three Corpse Brunch: Part One

18121812 views00 comments00 favs

From the moment they had decided to come until the present, each seated guest had been parading one faceless male possibility after another through her curious mind. Would he be strong? Handsome? Ugly? Crippled? The possibilities were endless...

Tilly Artaud

18121812 views1717 comments77 favs

After not going out for weeks, I went to a bar and met an electrical engineer, a motorcycle racer who raced in the Black Hills, a Renaissance man, in a relationship with a young married woman, and I told him about the toad.