Most read stories

The Silence of Harold

20422042 views1919 comments1111 favs

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. …

Christ walks the streets of Venice

20422042 views1212 comments1010 favs

Christ walks the streets of Venice,/has long since become a regular . . .

The Tree is Farther to the Man

20412041 views1313 comments1111 favs

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

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

20412041 views1010 comments77 favs

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

Obituary

20412041 views77 comments55 favs

He drifted for years: No forwarding. No phone.

Frog Kissing

20412041 views44 comments22 favs

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

Upon Learning the Fetus Has Fingernails

20412041 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.

Avatar Of Chaos

20402040 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.

Imago Mundi

20402040 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

Not Tired

20402040 views99 comments44 favs

Three hours isn't that long.

The Widow's Morning

20402040 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.

Under Water

20402040 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.

Tatters

20402040 views99 comments88 favs

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

To the Manchester Children's Monster

20402040 views99 comments88 favs

“As you do it unto the least of these so you do it unto me.” —Jesus These children that you murder are not your enemy. They are not your pain or your personal sorrow. They are, if anything, flowers blowing and …

Serial

20402040 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…

Visitation Hour

20402040 views55 comments11 fav

She watches too much VH1 for a five-year-old.

Zombies Calling

20402040 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.

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

20402040 views55 comments44 favs

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

Body to go

20402040 views44 comments11 fav

I’m squatting naked over the hand mirror, feet cold on the terrazzo floor, looking at my winking arsehole.

The Bicycle Mechanic

20402040 views1414 comments1212 favs

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

Contagious Blinking

20402040 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.

Disparity

20402040 views1313 comments1010 favs

sacred ground bleached with the salt of bitter tears

Polaris

20392039 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,

Ribs

20392039 views77 comments77 favs

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

Everyone Is Going Away

20392039 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

Time

20392039 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

Holding Hands in Public

20392039 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.…

Happiness

20392039 views1717 comments99 favs

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

Letter to the Bean Factory

20392039 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

Not Wanting to Write

20392039 views2121 comments1414 favs

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