Most read stories

Guess Who Was At The Party?

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She didn’t look a thing like his girlfriend. This alone should have been a sign that she was just a fling, a diversion from what he had known for the past five years. She began to think of his girlfriend as guess who. Guess who was at the opening, peopl

Fifth of July

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On the day my grandmother was buried, my grandfather shucked corn.

Peace in the Backyard

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No lies in the sky

If "1984" Had A More Upbeat Ending.....

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Momentarily Winston’s thoughts muddled again. He felt his fingers twitch, a physical sensation which seemed to accompany any recollection from the past. Most of his memories were moments he’d reiterated so many times during his stay in the Ministry of Lov

In Time,

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IN TIME, we will walk on gravel paths studded with gemstones.

How To Become a Great Writer

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My name is Tom Scarlatti and my kid brother, Billy, resents me. Of course, if you read magazines, you probably already know that. You probably don't think much of me, either. In fact, you probably think I'm a rotten no-good clod, since my brother Billy the famous…

Fruit and Vegetable

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I walk into the fruit and vegetable market and she sees me right away. I've been trying to avoid her and have been successful for more than three weeks. The break-up was not a good one. I still have a scar over my left eye where the glass ashtray hit me.

Egon Schiele In Prison

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With his hand, he sees through walls: from the street, From Schonbran park, girls go to rest in his house. They sleep off parents’ beatings. They eat.

Peach

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He wanted to walk in, take off his scrubs, and not have to look at pictures of peaches.

At the Bar

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On the Nightly News a pedophile in an orange jumpsuit does a sashay of shame in front of a wolf pack of cameras and satellite feeds that surround the downtown courthouse. At the bar, a woman with big blonde hair and a rhinestone manicure says off with his head. A…

Sof a

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My softness craves your weight. Give me your shape, and I won't resist it. Or, rather, I will but just enough to recall it. I can only give that much, and that's my fatal flaw. If I were a more pliable thing, I could let go of these impressions. The stains—coffee,…

The Shield

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A man and his wife are walking through a museum when the man sees a shield on the wall. Look at that! he says. Isn’t that remarkable? The two of them walk a little closer. What’s so remarkable about it? says his wife. Well, the workmanship! s

Unattended (novel excerpt)

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A sticky glass. An open copy of Outside magazine. A flat part of the meadow that reeked of blood and cologne. A dog (my dog) hidden in the closet, shivering so hard the hangers jangled.

Our Costume Is a Kiss

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I'm waiting in line for the only bathroom in this bar while my mother is dying somewhere. I don't know where. I have to piss really bad. An obese Cinderella is in front of me and a zombie with ample…

Fasting to a Comfortable Death

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He reached his decision just as the plane entered a pocket of turbulence. The moderate buffeting jiggled the flesh of his stomach, a common if uncomfortable occurrence, which he attempted to remedy by clearing his throat and tugging his shirt outward so

i go to buy folgers coffee & see ninja robots & am okay with it

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I execute my plan (conceived hours earlier while painting toenails) to go next door to the 7-11 clone and buy some coffee. I am too lazy to walk six blocks to the grocery store. I understand that this is a problem but I will deal with it later I swear. …

A Message from Upstate VII

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My wife’s voice behind me says, “Where did you get that godawful tee shirt?”

The Poor Little

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Wow. I’m just going to say it/ That’s one ugly little girl you’ve/ Made for yourself. But now someone/ Will miss you when you’re dead.

The Vanes of Foxes

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If you are a fox then I am also a fox.

Diary of a Lost Girl

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They were all in love with tortured musicians, 22-year-old geniuses who hanged themselves after making one perfect album. The musicians generally lived in England. It was safer that way.

Straight Out of the Can

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My other brother, Mike, has been camping out with the Carter boys down the street. For breakfast, he had beans, straight out of a can, and they were the best thing he ever ate. “These are the best,” he told them. “The best beans?” Joe, t

"Leda and the Crane-Daddy" by Bobbie Ann Mason and Meg Pokrass

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Co-written with Bobbie Ann Mason

Inaccrochable

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The man is wiry and jumpy. There is a tattoo on his upper arm of Charles Manson. He jumps and jumps. He looks like a man on a pogo stick. He will not stop jumping.

And then she was gone

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Given the nature of the events that were to follow I'm pretty sure that no one sane could have been equipped to comprehend, much less deal with, the coming weirdness any better than I was.

Reincarnation for T. Waits

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Your fuckin' shoe.

Inelegant Corpse

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I lay naked on the floor, feet toward the door, so that when my wife entered she would immediately see that leggy thoroughfare, ending at deflated buttocks and chicken-skinned scrotum, and in her repulsion repel me from her life. How wrong I was.

Mama

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So, I rough her up with sand paper, and hit her with chains, making dents. She examines her surfaces, tidily and efficiently, indicating the spots most in need of filling in with scratches and scrapes.

The Best Interest of the Child

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He was here and then he was gone. He wasn't at my ex-wife's house either. On Tuesday we were at the circus and that's the last I saw him. I jumped into my '68 Beetle, one step above a clown car, and I stopped by The Big Top. The carnies were there, smoking cigarettes and…

The Summer She Turned 17

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The summer she turned 17, she had to hold all the pieces of herself together with a red ribbon she tore off an old dress. It wound its way around her neck, her heart and her throat. It snaked down to her hips, the curve of her thighs, and wrapped itself

Should you ever be allowed to feel this good?

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I didn't notice or care that I was stripped down to just high heels, that he had placed a mirror next to the bed. I just wondered who we were looking at.