Most read stories

In This Lifetime, Oh How We’ve Drawn This Close

20182018 views99 comments1010 favs

Together at last, we'd gotten this far toward the warm end of those sweet Promises we made, once, with our sincerest written and passed down smart Words, done all on our own deeds, with some real gusto, and offered them as Christmas Lights,…

Cross-stitch

20182018 views22 comments22 favs

Janice’s jaw dropped when I told her how much we could get for it. “Enough to never work again and get a nice new pair of these,” I said, squeezing her tits.

En Pointe

20182018 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.

Alias

20182018 views66 comments33 favs

I can tell you all about rock bottom.

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.

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

20172017 views33 comments11 fav

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

Doorface

20172017 views88 comments88 favs

Doorface has a door for a face. Thus his name. He was born with it. The door in his face, not his name. No one is born with a name. The naming comes later.Doorface finds his unusual physiognomy mildly inconvenient. People keep trying to enter his head. No one likes it when…

The Club

20172017 views00 comments00 favs

Even the stinging warmth of the Grey Goose wasn’t fun without Lisa whispering into his ear, telling him stupid little confessions that he would recite to her in singsong the day after. And she would beat her small fists against his chest solemnly with a

The Beach

20172017 views66 comments33 favs

I often thought about touching those slippery flames between my thumb and index finger.

Sensitivity Workshop

20172017 views88 comments55 favs

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

some precursors of Mantegna

20172017 views66 comments44 favs

Light. And shade. Line and shape. Colour, form and perspective. Wall, wood, ceiling or canvas. Pigment in eggyolk or linseed oil. Stroked by brush or spread by knife. On small panels or plastered on vast spaces. All these problems to be worked over and solved. Then …

Mercury Unbound - 4

20172017 views2020 comments88 favs

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

Ant Farm

20162016 views77 comments55 favs

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

Inventing Games

20162016 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

20162016 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.

Bunny Ears

20162016 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…

The Killer

20162016 views88 comments44 favs

It don't knock you down to the goddamned ground and push your face into the mat and dare you to get back up. Just so it can knock you down again. They don't have real dreams. Dreams that make them wake up in the middle of the night. Hurting. Wanting.

Melancholy Happiness

20162016 views99 comments44 favs

It's only 4 lines.

Waylaid (1999)

20162016 views2020 comments99 favs

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

The Gospel According to Teeny

20162016 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.

Down on the Pharm

20162016 views00 comments00 favs

I found my patch by accident whilst out picking medicinals ta cover a load o' dead constrictors. I tested the patch in the traditional way an' got a bit stoned on jes' a nibble o' a fresh sprout. Course, everyone knows the sprouts 're more concentrated t

When He Left it all to Me

20162016 views3636 comments2020 favs

Where did you go?

Hummingbird hearts in a breadbox

20162016 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.

Lines with Billie Holiday

20162016 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.

A Little Piece of Humanity

20152015 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

20152015 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

Cold Feet

20152015 views99 comments55 favs

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

The Jewish Goodbye

20152015 views00 comments00 favs

"And secondly, it’s never bing bing bing with you. It’s like, bing bang bongity bumbity bum yadda yadda bla bla bla.” Sam stopped short and glanced down at his shoes. He knew he’d gone too far.

Little Green Rednecks

20152015 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

Letters from the Aslyum (2)

20152015 views44 comments11 fav

Leo, leo, leo, leo, the word itself imprinted on my brain, carved with a pearl handled blade into my cerebral cortex, into the medulla, burrowed deep into my dreams, I miss your kissing.