Most read stories

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

20362036 views55 comments44 favs

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

Contagious Blinking

20362036 views22 comments22 favs

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.

Though the Heart be Still as Loving

20362036 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

The Tree is Farther to the Man

20352035 views1313 comments1111 favs

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

Under Water

20352035 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.

Source Code

20352035 views1616 comments1515 favs

....the first/ in a long history of indignities.

Serial

20352035 views88 comments44 favs

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…

Upon Learning the Fetus Has Fingernails

20352035 views1111 comments44 favs

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.

Imago Mundi

20342034 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

Sidereal

20342034 views2929 comments1616 favs

"...they ran shirtless like pagans under southern stars."

Time

20342034 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

The Man Whose Wife Lived in His Neck

20342034 views2323 comments1515 favs

This is the story of the man whose wife lived in his neck. Every morning, he would turn to her and say, "Hello, Sweetheart. How was your night?" and she would answer, Brilliant! What else?

When Borders was Alive and Well

20342034 views88 comments77 favs

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…

Post-Op

20342034 views1515 comments99 favs

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

The Sex Life of Your Mouth

20342034 views1010 comments00 favs

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

Happiness

20342034 views1717 comments99 favs

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

Perversion

20342034 views77 comments55 favs

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

Zombies Calling

20342034 views11 comment22 favs

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.

The Bicycle Mechanic

20342034 views1414 comments1212 favs

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

Preliminary

20342034 views1111 comments55 favs

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

On Work

20342034 views1515 comments1010 favs

From my resume'.

A Silent Scream

20342034 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.

Prairie Rose

20332033 views77 comments44 favs

Every Friday night she gets liberated at The Haymarket Square doing a bunny hop or a do si do with ex-members of The Saint Augustine Women's Choir. She remembers how as kids, shy or awkward in dresses, their voices formed the harmony, the flight of something V-shaped…

Ribs

20332033 views77 comments77 favs

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

Not Tired

20332033 views99 comments44 favs

Three hours isn't that long.

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

20332033 views1010 comments77 favs

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

Holding Hands in Public

20332033 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 Burning Gulf

20332033 views88 comments44 favs

None of us ever thought this would happen.

Kin of His

20332033 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.

Napomo 17: April 7-12

20332033 views2222 comments1212 favs

The drinking will continue/ until morale improves