Most read stories

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

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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…

Happiness

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

The Silence of Harold

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It's been sixteen days since I spoke with another soul. I don't mind much, but I know enough about people to know most would think I'm mighty odd. Muriel, for example. She'd be pissed as all get out. …

Upon Learning the Fetus Has Fingernails

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Upon learning the fetus has fingernails, Missy texts her boyfriend: It has nails! He won’t reply because he’s just left for war, but she does it just the same.

Do you dream?

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

Imago Mundi

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

Discuss

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... her hair spills like spinach all the way down to her backpack, the top pocket where the bowl and the cinnamon estrange themselves from the coffee.

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

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

Apology + Opportunity

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What I need to secure from you now are two swears on this copy of Camp Bylaws for the Hearty and True that you won’t let my misinformed intrusion dampen your beginnings.

Tatters

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They sat on the couch, and he tried to unbutton her buttons, but she fended him off.

Broadbeach Bargain Bin

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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.”

Turbidity

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Where seldom is heard an encouraging word

Catastrophic, and Not Above Bad Puns

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I laid in the road, broken and alone, until I had no choice but to pull myself together and get out.

Serial

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He beats the girl, stabs her 22 times, rapes her, then uses his fingertips to push her orbital sockets into the back of her head before killing her. At trial, he laughs about whether or not there…

The Esso Roadhouse

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The night we crossed the Madres my father stuffed his Stetson full of cash.

Not Wanting to Write

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

Contagious Blinking

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He pulls on his wispy goatee and shifts his weight a few times from one foot to the other. That doesn’t help. It rarely does, to be honest.

Ribs

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

Rock-a-Hoola

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She wears a green and pink bikini and walks real slow, poking her chest out so people will notice her.

When Borders was Alive and Well

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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…

Kin of His

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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.

Zombies Calling

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The zombie apocalypse was long foretold as a rather exciting bit of bother involving shotguns and chainsaws, but the reality of it is rather depressingly boring.

His Laugh is My Yellow (or explaining skin color to a six-year-old boy)

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Max is the color of burnt caramelized sugar the sweet crust that decorates our bright enameled pots.

The Bicycle Mechanic

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

When I Last Saw Gina

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Regina Dawn "Gina" Edwards, 49, passed away June 2, 2006. R.I.P. "Ridge Woman"

The Widow's Morning

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Whispers flew, like wild darts across the room. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Right then, it wasn’t my job to figure things out; it was my job to cry.

Under Water

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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.

Hot.

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She was legally blind. He felt comfortable knowing she couldn’t see him very clearly.

Poleward

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We hit the road, headed west.

Frog Kissing

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