Most read stories

Everyone Is Going Away

20202020 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

20202020 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

Aloha

20202020 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

20202020 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

20202020 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…

'Introduction' to LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT

20202020 views00 comments00 favs

Was Sligo an unfeeling privacy-violator or an uncannily-feeling empath, privy to the deepest longings of those whose lives he came in contact with? [...] Sligo's grave is as silent as these pages ultimately would be if they were left unread.

Albert's Mother

20202020 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.

Serial

20202020 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…

Zombies Calling

20202020 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.

Fool of Me

20202020 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

20202020 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

20202020 views2121 comments1414 favs

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

Prairie Yields

20192019 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

20192019 views1010 comments77 favs

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

Post-Op

20192019 views1515 comments99 favs

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

Hot.

20192019 views33 comments22 favs

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

The Letter

20192019 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

The Bicycle Mechanic

20192019 views1414 comments1212 favs

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

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.

Though the Heart be Still as Loving

20192019 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

Something for you

20182018 views66 comments11 fav

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

Ribs

20182018 views77 comments77 favs

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

The Strongest Girl in the World

20182018 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

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.

How the Body Prepares Itself

20172017 views1818 comments1414 favs

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

Not Tired

20172017 views99 comments44 favs

Three hours isn't that long.

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.

Happiness

20172017 views1717 comments99 favs

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

When the Songbirds Went Silent in Cheerytown

20172017 views1010 comments44 favs

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