Most read stories

A Silent Scream

20192019 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.

Something for you

20182018 views66 comments11 fav

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

Prairie Rose

20182018 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…

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.

Syllables of the Dead

20182018 views2727 comments1212 favs

Nothing has changed// except the toys and fashion.

Prairie Yields

20182018 views2222 comments1515 favs

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

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.

Aloha

20182018 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.

Under Water

20182018 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.

Paper House

20182018 views1010 comments88 favs

Because if they’re wavering, it's about the coin, always about the coin.

Perversion

20182018 views77 comments55 favs

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

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.

Not Wanting to Write

20182018 views2121 comments1414 favs

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

Food for Thought

20182018 views1313 comments1111 favs

I could never be a chef.Preparing creations that will merely be consumed.If I were a chef,I'd have to create dishes that required chewingand chewing and chewing.I'd find it better for my dishes to be destroyed in the mouth.Remembered for their…

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

Though the Heart be Still as Loving

20172017 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 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

Polaris

20162016 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,

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

Post-Op

20162016 views1515 comments99 favs

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

Departure. Arrival. Return.

20162016 views2424 comments1515 favs

Put down your bazooka, Marianne.

Grace Gladys Gibbons

20152015 views44 comments33 favs

Grace Gibbons is a way of life.

Sideburns

20152015 views1515 comments1010 favs

. . . quit being so rigid, open up to the pasta.

The Letter

20152015 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

When the Songbirds Went Silent in Cheerytown

20152015 views1010 comments44 favs

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