Most read stories

Polaris

20312031 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,

Imago Mundi

20312031 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

The Tree is Farther to the Man

20312031 views1313 comments1111 favs

I am constricted by rings. The weight of self crushes me.

Holding Hands in Public

20312031 views55 comments00 favs

Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

The Sex Life of Your Mouth

20312031 views1010 comments00 favs

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

The Mosaic Thief

20312031 views66 comments11 fav

Bit by bit I was traveling away, we thought. Maybe I’d join myself, all together, in Toronto. Or in an industrial coffee can. Or in the closet. “Check the closet,” I pointed.

Preliminary

20312031 views1111 comments55 favs

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

Not Wanting to Write

20312031 views2121 comments1414 favs

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

A Silent Scream

20312031 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.

Everyone Is Going Away

20302030 views88 comments44 favs

“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

How the Body Prepares Itself

20302030 views1818 comments1414 favs

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

Grace Gladys Gibbons

20302030 views44 comments33 favs

Grace Gibbons is a way of life.

Time

20302030 views22 comments11 fav

time. Night after night he's up, restless. What if she knew his plans? If only he'd bypass his miscalculations and slip through

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

20302030 views1010 comments77 favs

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

3 Kids

20302030 views1414 comments1515 favs

There he was, naked and covered in green mud

Papadad: a portrait

20302030 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,…

Cleverbot conversation RSC00206460

20302030 views11 comment11 fav

maybe if I bat my lashes just right, or look prim enough to fly, you just might touch me tonight, and the dream will pop and fizz and I will wake somewhere, your hands smoothing these lines of worry away.

The Burning Gulf

20302030 views88 comments44 favs

None of us ever thought this would happen.

When the Songbirds Went Silent in Cheerytown

20302030 views1010 comments44 favs

What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?

Perversion

20302030 views77 comments55 favs

“It’s a sad thing,” I said, “when a man has to suffer just for getting a little on the side.”

Maximus and Kimchi

20302030 views44 comments22 favs

The dogs shit on the roof and then, every two weeks or so, the man in Apartment 311 climbs out the window with a plastic shovel and scoops the shit into a white plastic bag, which soon grows heavy with dung, dangling from his black-gloved wrist.

Letter to the Bean Factory

20302030 views66 comments22 favs

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

Poleward

20302030 views99 comments33 favs

We hit the road, headed west.

On Work

20302030 views1515 comments1010 favs

From my resume'.

Disparity

20302030 views1313 comments1010 favs

sacred ground bleached with the salt of bitter tears

Though the Heart be Still as Loving

20302030 views22 comments11 fav

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

Ribs

20292029 views77 comments77 favs

The moun­tains of humil­ity went silent, / the rain of regency dried its eyes

Not Tired

20292029 views99 comments44 favs

Three hours isn't that long.

Aloha

20292029 views1010 comments99 favs

It’s a little known fact that eels are often lost in translation – only the spotted variety, not the striped or the common and certainly not the electric.... I think about that lovely hippie girl and her knowledge of eels, sometimes.

Post-Op

20292029 views1515 comments99 favs

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