Most read stories

Happiness

20092009 views1717 comments99 favs

Can you find happiness in the middle of a kidney stone attack?

Kin of His

20092009 views3030 comments1818 favs

I dreamed that coffee grounds had spilled on my Buffet. There was another clarinet, a silver one, that belonged to a man not in the room, that was clean of debris.

Preliminary

20092009 views1111 comments55 favs

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

Fool of Me

20092009 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…

Frog Kissing

20092009 views44 comments22 favs

All right, so the frog I risked my lips on (not to mention the contents of my stomach) . . . .

Imago Mundi

20082008 views1212 comments99 favs

in which creative destruction holds the heads of entire populations beneath the surface of the water in bathtubs until the bubbles stop

Grace Gladys Gibbons

20082008 views44 comments33 favs

Grace Gibbons is a way of life.

You're A Bad Dad: The Story Of Juniper Mélange

20082008 views77 comments44 favs

Juniper Mélange was a cat person, not a dog person. Truly detested when she perceived falseness in another person. She wore glasses and drank tea. Had dark straight hair and light skin. She dressed conservatively and would watch the sky most days. She wou

The Sex Life of Your Mouth

20082008 views1010 comments00 favs

"What say we adjourn to the bedroom and I give you a little demonstration of sexual acrobatics?”

The Bicycle Mechanic

20082008 views1414 comments1212 favs

The hour reflected those pleasant moments when evening hunger can be satiated by anticipation alone, before the pangs become demanding.

Poleward

20082008 views99 comments33 favs

We hit the road, headed west.

A Silent Scream

20082008 views22 comments22 favs

She hated the noiseless dying sound they made as he stuck the hook through their eyes. She always wanted for them to scream, but they never did. They didn’t even blink.

Disparity

20082008 views1313 comments1010 favs

sacred ground bleached with the salt of bitter tears

Avatar Of Chaos

20072007 views55 comments55 favs

He has one good eye and is missing the other. The socket of his missing eye squints with a disturbing and unfathomable insight.

fire and ice

20072007 views88 comments33 favs

“Who says?” she purred in reply “They all do” he countered smiling , chewing on an ice cube “All of them, huh?” She leaned forward, raising a wicked left eyebrow and whispered, “And just who are they, anyway?”

Sideburns

20072007 views1515 comments1010 favs

. . . quit being so rigid, open up to the pasta.

The Woman Who Cut Down Her Husband

20072007 views1616 comments1414 favs

The woman carried a wooden log which was her husband into the house.

Gastronomy

20072007 views33 comments22 favs

your olive-pitting thumbs

the symmetry of Aldo Rossi's handrails

20072007 views1414 comments99 favs

It would be another difference a building has from a “sculpture”. It would be something that even photographers would have difficulty in disguising, since many modern buildings, even many modern photographs of buildings, place such emphasis on symmetry. For both…

Polaris

20062006 views1010 comments77 favs

Things get lost in Big John, too. I see the other guys throw jokes about his size at his body that wedge their way into his armpits or into the wrinkles of his laugh lines and disappear. I’m not sure if it all disappears to remind us how small we are,

Starspeak

20062006 views44 comments22 favs

So if we all have an idea what goes down when the young person at the cash register (the registerista?) asks, “Can I help you?” then we all know there’s a different way to habla at Seattle’s gift to the world.

How the Body Prepares Itself

20062006 views1818 comments1414 favs

it corrupts the smells// and flavors of the world/ and plants its swollen face

Papadad: a portrait

20062006 views1212 comments1313 favs

Papadad has one good eye. The other fell out during a rant and has since been replaced by a rifle scope, which he uses to scrutinise enemies.——Papadad is an authority on everything, even topics he has not researched. He expatiates on these at the dinner table,…

Pink

20062006 views1818 comments1515 favs

Together / they peeled and fed each other pink fruit, / ordered expensive pink beef, went on / vacations and viewed pink sunsets / on paradise beaches.

Big Dipper

20052005 views55 comments55 favs

“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”

The Strongest Girl in the World

20052005 views00 comments00 favs

At the edge of the forest, his sister began to complain about how everybody—their mother and father and all of her friends included—hated her. It was exasperating, the light she sometimes put herself in. The fact of the matter was that she received more

Tuning Pegs

20052005 views22 comments22 favs

Her face had that strange preserved quality Maybelle saw in many aging Boomer women — like an old toy never removed from its packaging.

Under Water

20052005 views11 comment11 fav

When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.

Post-Op

20052005 views1515 comments99 favs

She tells Tuesday's lover that there's nothing wrong with cheap thrills without anesthesia,

Napomo 17: April 7-12

20052005 views2222 comments1212 favs

The drinking will continue/ until morale improves