Most read stories

Prairie Yields

20192019 views2222 comments1515 favs

The river’s not/ a river but/ a FEMA map/ of flooding probabilities.

Time

20192019 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

Under Water

20192019 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.

On reading the “Lives of the Poets” by Michael Schmidt

20192019 views66 comments22 favs

And now its done! Five months read! This book is batoning in my head. Its eleven o'clock AM and hot as hell, even the breeze, billowing nets through the sliding screen adds sweat, cuts me down to size. I will needs again to…

Hot.

20192019 views33 comments22 favs

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

Albert's Mother

20192019 views44 comments22 favs

The stern tone of the chairwoman made him miss his mother, the snap of her accusations, the sting of her belt on the backs of his legs.

Preliminary

20192019 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

20192019 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…

A Sacrifice For God And Man

20192019 views00 comments00 favs

The words of prophets only serve to demonstrate that ‘unreliable narrative’ can often result in poor literature; unfortunately, poor literature can attract a very large following.

Not Wanting to Write

20192019 views2121 comments1414 favs

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

Something for you

20182018 views66 comments11 fav

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

Polaris

20182018 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,

Auden at Swarthmore

20182018 views1616 comments1212 favs

So I went to see the wrinkled and rumpled poet, who insisted on reading from memory, stumbling through his sheaf of poems.

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

20182018 views1010 comments77 favs

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

Post-Op

20182018 views1515 comments99 favs

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

The Letter

20182018 views55 comments44 favs

You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world

Departure. Arrival. Return.

20182018 views2424 comments1515 favs

Put down your bazooka, Marianne.

The Bicycle Mechanic

20182018 views1414 comments1212 favs

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

Though the Heart be Still as Loving

20182018 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

Boredom & Ennui

20172017 views00 comments00 favs

I had a weird feeling I had just validated his behavior — provided another tile in the mosaic of his ego and self-esteem — by doing nothing more than entering this hall of mirrors, and reflecting.

Big Dipper

20172017 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 Widow's Morning

20172017 views11 comment11 fav

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.

So Different Now

20172017 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 Tall Man’s Secret

20162016 views88 comments55 favs

For the next two hours, Ed goes nonchalantly about his business, buck naked the whole time. He putters around the house, writes e mails, waters plants, vacuums the rug and sweeps the porch. I pretend to ignore his nudity

Starspeak

20162016 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.

Imago Mundi

20162016 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 Strongest Girl in the World

20162016 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

Kin of His

20162016 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.

How the Body Prepares Itself

20152015 views1818 comments1414 favs

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

Not Tired

20152015 views99 comments44 favs

Three hours isn't that long.