Most read stories

lament of Liu Ch'e . . . while elsewhere--

19571957 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19571957 views22 comments11 fav

My name is Lu-chen Wyatt, and I have watched this tomb for seven years with undying loyalty. Tomorrow I am going away, and I wish to set down the story of my leaving and to say goodbye to Set-Yi, whose burial place has been my home for so long.

The Little Dog from Outer Space

19571957 views1111 comments88 favs

I looked at her, shook my head and tried to smile. She smiled back, beaming a radiance that pushed away the chill.

Good Deed Punished (Matthew IV)

19571957 views1616 comments99 favs

homelessness, you called the lie,

The Ouija Board Guide to True Facts about Cremation

19571957 views00 comments00 favs

Oh, and take off all your jewelry unless you want your relatives sifting you through a window screen looking for your diamond.

Our Time as Men

19571957 views44 comments44 favs

Rhonda looks guilty as it is, don’t you think? That hair! And the unhappiness smeared across her face like war paint after a war.

Peach

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"What's that smell?" Osama glares at me from the front seat of the Trans Am. "What smell?" I say. "You smell like a diaper. Are you wearing a diaper?" Osama and Peach both laugh at me. "No... maybe, its my Baby Soft perfume. Is it too strong?"

Mule

19561956 views2222 comments1717 favs

Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

Traum

19561956 views1010 comments55 favs

Over our short, yet enduring relationship, I found that he was desperately trying to reconcile his ambitions with his situation. I left and he continued to be unhappy, trying to "fix" what he now realized had been broken all along. In the end, a span of a

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19561956 views22 comments11 fav

A plague of dykes mattered not. This spider-girl had driven the world of thought from Borden’s mind.

The Measure Of A Man

19561956 views44 comments11 fav

Cos I play hard that’s why. Everyday hard. You want someone who ain’t an everyday player ? Try our Closer. But ain’t his fault he’s always sat there in the pen, like he’s taken root. His number lines rely on the rest of the team. So he’s flatl

Weary

19561956 views11 comment00 favs

At this time of night, the fluorescence makes his eyes bleed. The muscles in his legs are tight; walking's more of a necessity than anything else. Alexander pushes the shopping cart down the endless gray tile floors of the Grand Union on 35.

Of Mugs and Men

19561956 views44 comments22 favs

I want to break that mug. (Break him.)

The Book Mind

19561956 views66 comments66 favs

The book mind, just like its namesake the book, is capable of movement only after its assembly: otherwise, it boasts no moving parts.

Monster Truck

19561956 views33 comments33 favs

In another lifetime the loft had been a shoe factory and I joked how in the dark of night I could hear the ghosts of lost soles speaking in tongues. There was the rolling of eyes, and when I repeated the joke to my therapist, who was actually sitting acr

The Celebrity

19561956 views99 comments66 favs

"He doesn't have a parish," I said. "He works in a hospital in the East Bay. He told me that if I were in that hospital and I woke up and saw him, I was in big trouble."

Magnum Opus

19551955 views44 comments33 favs

The scaffolding had been difficult to construct. The rock floor of the bluff offered no purchase, so he'd been forced to anchor braces to the trees behind, then span some thirty feet. A cantilevered gallows reached another fifteen feet past the stage...

Letting Go

19551955 views55 comments44 favs

Jerrod's lips and tongue were like slabs of bologna someone shook in Kirsten’s face as she hit the turn signal. Kirsten was proud of herself. She'd been taking it well and she was pretty sure her real feelings weren’t poking through.

First the Newborn Birds on High and Then the Awful Climbing Beasts

19551955 views1212 comments88 favs

"Stop watching the news!Because the news contrives to frighten youTo make you feel small and aloneTo make you feel that your mind isn't your own"--MorrisseyThe world has gone crazy, but please let me make you One of my healing songs. You can eat it now, if you…

Pterodactyls

19551955 views1111 comments88 favs

In his head he thinks oh whatever when I wake this time I shall have a very fine discussion with Someone special, oh but finding meaning in anything nowadays that's Just too much rich flattery, isn't it, filthy mirror? Inside His head's…

Where Is Daddy?

19551955 views66 comments55 favs

He checks the bedrooms first, then the hallway, followed by the living room and the bathrooms. When he can't find you he takes to calling out, daddy, I'm sure the neighbors hear.

Looking Upwards

19551955 views1313 comments88 favs

Steel beams. Welds painted over green. Yellow numbers of some sort. Old phone booths. Tags on the walls. I looked up and saw where bits of water fall down from the overpass. Pigeon up there. Washing his wings or something like that. Greyness. I was in a truck.…

Casting It

19551955 views1010 comments55 favs

Truth came out of it, a little bug that hovered there...

Hymen

19551955 views88 comments66 favs

For me German was a school subject. For Hymen, who could pronounce German but not speak it, it was a poetic technique or element, shorthand for what ails the world.

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19551955 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

The Laughing Grave

19551955 views1010 comments77 favs

Newhouse returned his gaze to his wet palm, which he lifted to his nose with suspicion, sniffed again and again, then struggled to move out from under the growing stream.

Albatross Antics

19541954 views00 comments00 favs

Track One Johnny Burkemeister, lead vocals and flutist of the band Albatross Antics, sits on his bed thinking in silence. His elbow rests on his knee, and his palm on his forehead with his fingers running through his dirty-blonde hair. He is staring at a copy of Paste…

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19541954 views88 comments55 favs

Kids are fascinated by me. Adults look the other way. Maybe it's my size. Or maybe it's the stories in the newspapers.

The Paris American

19541954 views44 comments22 favs

He returned to America on the Fourth of July. Twisting in his cramped window seat miles above the Atlantic, he buckled up before the descent. “You can handle this,” he muttered. Hungover, still reeling from the dreamy head-turning experience of…

Encasement

19541954 views22 comments00 favs

A universe, all of it, was encased in glass.