Most read stories

Letter to the Bean Factory

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The figure was covered in a light blue chenille bathrobe, splayed out on her back on the floor by the glass door, her hair done up in large curlers, a slipper lying askew by her left foot. Richie crouched near the face and the rancid flame of bourbon lea

A Little Fishing

19601960 views1212 comments99 favs

Harpo sits and looks at something I can't see. I drink beer and ask him questions. I ask him how they found the cancer. Backache, he says. He went to see a doctor.

Trio of Found Poems

19591959 views22 comments11 fav

Paper Bird, Devotchka, TV On The Radio

Scent of a Woman - 55 word story

19591959 views1313 comments55 favs

She slipped into a silky sheath dress, and stepped into black sequined heels just as the doorbell rang. Her date had arrived to take her to his much touted Art opening in town. Reaching under the bathroom sink for a final mist of hair spray she realized too late…

The Clod and the Pebble

19591959 views1212 comments99 favs

“Lightning has more longevity than I,”

Bubble Gum and Paperback Books

19591959 views1010 comments1010 favs

A block after his first crime, he found a bookstore to commit another.

Her Dream Princes

19591959 views1010 comments44 favs

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

Mutants

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Elin and I had religious differences about the garage. To her the garage required regular sweeping and organization--it was an extension of our house. Elin believed dust and mold to be manifestations of inner sin. I insisted that they were agents of evolu

Polaris

19581958 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,

Fall

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The rustling of the dry leaves when he moved even slightly sounded like thunder to him, and he was sure if any of the other kids from the neighborhood got too close, it was the noise that would end up giving him away.

Tuesday Night

19581958 views44 comments11 fav

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

Redacted.

19581958 views11 comment00 favs

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.

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

19581958 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

Mother

19581958 views00 comments00 favs

I carefully placed the knife back to its original position and, with poorly contained excitement, retrieved a palm from the fridge. It was slightly wrinkled, but it was just as fair as the rest of the pristine white in the fridge. It felt warm to my hands

Under Water

19581958 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.

Robert Penn Warren and Orange County Blue

19581958 views88 comments55 favs

We were old. Wind came in with small threats and played games with drapes. A print of orchids and some other green affair that looked to me like kiwis. Sadie was arranging some items on a desk and I noticed there was a cricket on the window. I was thinking…

Something for you

19571957 views66 comments11 fav

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

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

19571957 views1010 comments66 favs

—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

So Different Now

19571957 views22 comments00 favs

She’s right there in Thirsty’s. In her usual spot. Drinking her usual drink. Yuengling on tap. One after another. And he’s there too. Behind the bar. Pouring drinks. One after another. Sometimes they speak. But mostly she orders. He pours. And

The Weaver's Tale

19571957 views33 comments22 favs

‘Hmph! Dream indeed! “Past the wit of man to say what dream it was” - the man's a knotty-pated arse.' The old master-weaver spat into the fire, his rheumy eyes bright with contempt, then looked round furtively; Nathaniel was not yet returned,…

Our Time as Men

19571957 views44 comments44 favs

Rhonda looks guilty as it is, don’t you think? That hair! And the unhappiness smeared across her face like war paint after a war.

The Art of It

19571957 views44 comments22 favs

To write a good poem, one needs nothing but the whole intent of goodness.

A Silent Scream

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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.

Avatar Of Chaos

19561956 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.

Zhou Yu’s Train

19561956 views1010 comments55 favs

Are we like a poem, a short hand of words curtained together, evoking a mood, but in the end, impenetrable? We follow the clues to our lover's heart and what we find isn't him at all but ourselves. We fill every part of his life, every part of his past and even become…

Do you dream?

19561956 views1515 comments55 favs

Megalomania is a kind of backwards leprosy. It rots your insides out while your skin glistens and grows tighter around your bones.

Quiet (from Grand Street literary journal)

19561956 views22 comments22 favs

I know it’s nobody’s fault, and that one thing had nothing to do with the other, because it was this way for me since I was born; they just didn’t figure it out for a while that with one of my ears I could hardly hear, and with the other, I couldn

Jumping Beans

19551955 views11 comment11 fav

The red laser flashes. He asks if I have an Ace Rewards card. I can't even answer because my beans have stopped jumping. I wonder if the laser light harmed them. Then one jumps and another, and I hand the boy some money, suddenly very fond of my beans.

Forgive Me Mamma

19551955 views00 comments00 favs

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

"at 'night' any night is can't"

19551955 views66 comments00 favs

“In the process, I’ve created this memory track. Yet had the sense that I had to make fixed memories move as illusion, that they move as illusion.”