Most read stories

Casting It

19591959 views1010 comments55 favs

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

Here Comes the Sun

19591959 views00 comments11 fav

I watch my brother carry her into the hospital, and I love him with parts of myself I didn’t know were capable of love. I love my brother with the space behind my eyes, the skin between my fingers, the ends of my hair, the crease in my neck. I love him wi

Arcana Magi - c.20: Compelling

19591959 views00 comments00 favs

Danica paused for a moment as thoughts of going to Avalon Tech changed to heading for Mystic Intelligence. She could not understand why she thought about going there.

Albatross Antics

19581958 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…

Cut

19581958 views1515 comments88 favs

Effluvium is such a lovely word, so hey surprise it covers rancid butter, vomit, fertile gingko fruit trekked in from the pavement.

Letting Go

19581958 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.

Yakkety-Yak

19581958 views33 comments33 favs

Last night, the station played me a dream of sexual promiscuity that included -- but was not limited to -- imaginative acts involving....

A Natural Consequence of Things

19581958 views66 comments44 favs

Belief is a hammer, like saying the mind is a piece of iron.

The Sky-What Limit?

19581958 views00 comments00 favs

Lighter-than-air flight was back. The skies of the coast were alight with colorful balloons, dirigibles, and zeppelins tethered to their docking towers along the beach, the huge aircraft bobbing in the breeze up and down the coast for miles,…

Arlene

19571957 views22 comments00 favs

His mother was not an aw-come-here-honey-and-give-me-a-hug type mom. She was the kind of mother who, if you had some kind of problem, would suggest that perhaps it might be a good idea to volunteer (she was really big on volunteering) at some sort of orga

Folded Up

19571957 views1010 comments88 favs

Time to pull in the shining teeth, but it makes me so sad, you know I'd rather be holding hands. The others have told me, don't hold back, hit them with every white knuckle, and let them bleed out, I'd rather be kissing your face. It hurts,…

The Good Sounds of Squeamish Language

19571957 views66 comments44 favs

Accuracy is a prediction

Three Thirds

19571957 views44 comments22 favs

"I was hit by an Amtrak train and dragged a hundred feet, and I'm going to die from smoking cigarettes."

True Vocation

19571957 views11 comment11 fav

After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

The Whippy Guy

19571957 views11 comment00 favs

He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

FAMILY VALUES

19571957 views00 comments00 favs

that is a fair description of our family if I add the disclaimer that the girls are whores and we don’t have much in common.

Rock On

19571957 views2525 comments1212 favs

...fancy the idea of tapas, Spain an' all.

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.

A Chaos Theory

19561956 views00 comments00 favs

—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19561956 views77 comments22 favs

French pee runs stronger, less minty. In France the world' a pissoir.

The Atlantic

19561956 views2020 comments88 favs

Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote this of them

The Madness of the Gods

19561956 views00 comments00 favs

“Have you heard about Lucius?” The lawyer turned to the carpenter. “They say he's gone mad. Just gone; the madness of the gods.” Sitting in the barbershop were the former two, one in his forties and the other of his fifties; a gray-haired…

The Chicken In A Can Incident: A Cautionary Christmas Tale

19561956 views33 comments33 favs

Don't feed it to the dog, it has bones, it is a whole goddamn chicken in a can, and I can't stress that enough. Besides one year you gave me a toilet seat for Christmas. I couldn't even eat that Ky

Life of Charlotte

19561956 views1111 comments44 favs

A wall of icons can be beautiful if you don’t look closely at the hands. The hands tell stories of too short lives and unrequited love.

AA For the Suicidal - alt.punk extract

19551955 views11 comment11 fav

The drive back to Sac does nothing to sober me up, either, and although Avaline and I are ready to hurl, she takes me to her afternoon support group, “Lean On Me: A Place for Manic-Depressive and Bipolar Sufferers to Come Together.”

Antigone Détente

19551955 views1717 comments1414 favs

Tan my hide. Feed me to rabid / macaques.

five discards or less

19551955 views66 comments55 favs

weep or go stark mad your amanuensic fool will bury your words

A Girl / An Elderly Woman / A Bear

19551955 views88 comments44 favs

A girl waiting at the door, heart in a Ziploc. An elderly woman stopping at the bank. A bear in a screaming contest with a troop of girl scouts.

soft soap

19551955 views1212 comments1212 favs

you were very very small, you were everso small, you were like – the tiniest creature, hopping about on one leg

Confessions of a Liturgical Voyeur

19551955 views1616 comments66 favs

...when she spoke, her voice still seemed to spill bourbon from a heavy crystal tumbler, and drift cigarette smoke in a dark paneled room.