Most read stories

In Portland, Where It Rains

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So many opportunities for mud can be found in these hills,

Tilly Artaud

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After not going out for weeks, I went to a bar and met an electrical engineer, a motorcycle racer who raced in the Black Hills, a Renaissance man, in a relationship with a young married woman, and I told him about the toad.

Record of a Living Being

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Kurosawa was silent as we traipsed through the destruction, carefully side-stepping piles of sodden pages and heaps of swollen, broken-backed texts. Workers in coveralls used wide brooms to push water toward a floor-drain at the back of the store.

Do you dream?

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Megalomania is a kind of backwards leprosy. It rots your insides out while your skin glistens and grows tighter around your bones.

Lesson 38

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You have a house (plural, as in Spain)

Full Circle

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I staggered away in the storm tears frozen to my cheeks.

The Road To Baghdad

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In late summer 2000 Dick Cheney held a secret strategy meeting in a hunting lodge deep in the hills of southeastern Wyoming. It was Cheney's own place, bought with the money he'd ripped from the trough with both hands through decades of what…

Madi's Love

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The depth of her love for Briana could only be heard on the 80’s ballads station fumbling from the stereo in Madi’s car, awkward, just like her smile.

Sensitivity Workshop

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Inspired by my last writers' workshop, where encouragement is key.

Bubble Gum and Paperback Books

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A block after his first crime, he found a bookstore to commit another.

Fear in a Handful of Dust / National Poetry Month 2015 30 Poems

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Fear in a Handful of Dust

Homage to Jack

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Yes. Yes. Yes.

What The Hell Nationality Are You?

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It’s confusing enough to grow up in a place like America, a country without definitive culture, except for ranch dressing and reality TV, but it’s even worse to grow up half one thing, half another, christened a hyphenation of names without connection to

Fish Stew

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It made a satisfying ‘pop’ when Donnie’s nose crushed under my knuckle-scared right. I threw another to his jaw, and then a left into his gut. It had forced the air out and Donnie crumpled to the floor gasping, half sitting, gurgling through his nose.

I’m Sure They’ll Have an App for That

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Already they’re taking away my books, supplanting them with Kindles and Nooks.

Conversation on Thanksgiving

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“You always use that as a crutch. You, a sixteen year old girl. The way you were…” She looked at me, shaking her head, looking at my body as if remembering some wrong, some thing that should not have been.

John & Jackie

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By the time I learned how much I loved my family, I was 3 years and eight-hundred miles away from them

The Strongest Girl in the World

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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

Medusas

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I didn’t kiss Odgeir because I fancied him, I kissed him because I knew other people fancied him.

A House Made of Stars

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My cousin had put them up last year, showed me when we stood on her bed as her fingers pointed, traced over the outlines, then turned out the lights, so that I could see them glow.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water (the update)

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tough noogies

Letter to the Bean Factory

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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

Animals

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I folded my problems into pretty paper animals to keep me company. I set them on the Formica dinette set. I jammed some into cracks so they’d stand up straight: organized warfare

How To Train Mules

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“Mules don’t like to dive, Esther.” “I said maybe, Hugh. Maybe.”

Only a Memory Away

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When Uncle Dan got sent to the Alzheimer's ward, the ladies licked their lips. Fresh meat.

77 Words About Nothing (Triad)

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My mind has started to finish thoughts at 77 Words. These are just a few.

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

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

I Like You ‘Cause You Like Me

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And you don't like much. No handholding or brand name sweaters. No phone calls late at night. This is not you. And you certainly don't go for kisses in the rain or cards from the grocery store with…

Refugees

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Four in the morning. I was awake because I'm always awake. There were little fog-halos around the streetlights.

Little Green Rednecks

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“I was listenin' ta one o' them Terran religious broadcasts 'bout Mother Earth when they up an' says that global warmin' was all the fault o' mankind, an' they had ta make the non-believers see that all the drivin' they did, an' all the stuff they bought