Most read stories

Robert Penn Warren and Orange County Blue

20152015 views88 comments55 favs

We were old. Wind came in with small threats and played games with drapes. A print of orchids and some other green affair that looked to me like kiwis. Sadie was arranging some items on a desk and I noticed there was a cricket on the window. I was thinking…

This, About The Man I Met Out Here In Nearly Nowhere

20152015 views33 comments22 favs

Out here in nearly nowhere I met this man. About him I know something something, and no one can tell me otherwise.

Lines with Billie Holiday

20152015 views1212 comments1111 favs

It is almost as if there isn’t a wedge of wood between us – I can feel him inches away from me. I can’t control the sigh or the tears that escape my body.

Ant Farm

20142014 views77 comments55 favs

Every time I squished an ant with my finger, I felt a piece of me loosen and chisel off.

THE MOON, THE SUN, AND RYAN W. BRADLEY (not quite a fortune-telling)

20142014 views33 comments11 fav

“That’s just Ryan W. Bradley—son of a bitch knows better by now.”

Forgive Me Mamma

20142014 views00 comments00 favs

His footing unsure and his clothes covered in vomit, he grabs the railing and stumbles up the three steps. He pulls off his shirt, finds a cleaner area on the puke-covered garment, wipes sweat off his forehead, dripping wet from the humid, stormy night, a

Old Photo, 1948 or so

20142014 views99 comments66 favs

I’m maybe only four. Not smoking cigarettes found in street gutters yet. That will come the next year, when I’m five. Maybe when I’m six, and Andy’s five, my pal from across the street. That’s my tricycle parked behind this pack of kids that look to be ne

Inventing Games

20142014 views00 comments00 favs

As children we invent games and we're really creative. We concoct ridiculous rules and enjoy making adaptations to them. And everything makes sense. Then you grow up, lose creativity. You don't invent games anymore. Recess is replaced with a second…

Note from the wilderness

20142014 views2727 comments77 favs

It's a business, after all, all are quick to remind us. True dat, and the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west, and death and taxes...yup yup, we know. We get it.

A Little Piece of Humanity

20142014 views33 comments22 favs

It wasn't meant to happen like this— the shutter, the feeling of breathlessness when he touched her shoulder, even after he had pointed out all of the things she had done incorrectly throughout the day. They had been married for five years in February, and as…

Mother

20142014 views00 comments00 favs

I carefully placed the knife back to its original position and, with poorly contained excitement, retrieved a palm from the fridge. It was slightly wrinkled, but it was just as fair as the rest of the pristine white in the fridge. It felt warm to my hands

Waylaid (1999)

20142014 views2020 comments99 favs

In that mix of sports and religion, TV was what there was of virtue. I thought bars were nicer.

Early (Valentine's Day Challenge)

20142014 views1111 comments55 favs

Beside her door there was a black squirrel in the dogwood she saw scratched his armpit.

En Pointe

20142014 views22 comments00 favs

Her gaunt arms softly rose, sweeping in front of her with movements that were hesitant at first but, as the music that only she could hear took her in its grip, became graceful and assured.

Animals

20142014 views44 comments44 favs

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

love letter

20142014 views1818 comments44 favs

At night, I fold your name in origami doves and blow, hard, and you are disassembled come morning.

Dos Equis

20132013 views1616 comments88 favs

dos equis ambar sits cool and dark by my side

The Gospel According to Teeny

20132013 views1414 comments1212 favs

Then I heard it -- a sound like an oboe being strangled. Teeny was farting onto the cement stoop through her jeans, a tripple flutter blast.

Little Green Rednecks

20132013 views00 comments00 favs

“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

Obituary

20132013 views99 comments22 favs

I won't fail at this like trying to fix a leaking sink without mud grease or washers tinier than Cheerios.

Trapeze Artist

20122012 views1515 comments1313 favs

Solitude is such an excellent alternative to suicide.

Bunny Ears

20122012 views00 comments11 fav

Word traveled fast at school on Monday. Emma Jakowski had actually captured him. He was being held in her dad's tool shed. Anyone who wanted to see him had to be in the Jakowski's backyard by 3:15 that afternoon, chocolate bunny ears in hand. It was no…

Melancholy Happiness

20122012 views99 comments44 favs

It's only 4 lines.

The Great Bank Run of 1912

20122012 views1212 comments66 favs

She bought her first gerbil at the age of nine. She wondered if he would die from endless logrolling. When he died from natural causes, she refused to bury him and kept a distance from the first boy who kissed her--Thomas J. Hobbit. The next year a twister swept…

Cold Feet

20122012 views99 comments55 favs

“…And his smell. That Brett smell. It might become my smell…”

Kissing Cobras

20122012 views00 comments00 favs

She administers the alkaloids slowly, soaking the muscles in blight, the body tissue beneath into corrosion.

Semi Tiresias

20122012 views1212 comments1111 favs

I knew my mother would die by the weekend

When He Left it all to Me

20122012 views3636 comments2020 favs

Where did you go?

Hummingbird hearts in a breadbox

20122012 views99 comments66 favs

We married in the ruins of a pachinko hall, the tiny bones in the pocket of your tracksuit luring a pack of wild dogs out from the underpass.

Mercury Unbound - 4

20122012 views2020 comments88 favs

The music, Antonín Dvořák's 'New World Symphony,' the second movement, 'Largo,' immediately alters my mood.