Most read stories

Traum

19691969 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

Conversation on Thanksgiving

19691969 views88 comments00 favs

“You always use that as a crutch. You, a sixteen year old girl. The way you were…” She looked at me, shaking her head, looking at my body as if remembering some wrong, some thing that should not have been.

Letting Go

19691969 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.

True Vocation

19691969 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

Good Deed Punished (Matthew IV)

19691969 views1616 comments99 favs

homelessness, you called the lie,

The Book Mind

19691969 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.

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19691969 views77 comments22 favs

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

The Madness of the Gods

19691969 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…

Gazpacho

19691969 views55 comments33 favs

It's a pretty strange feeling when you think you're about to bite into some ice cream and instead it's gazpacho.

Folded Up

19681968 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,…

five discards or less

19681968 views66 comments55 favs

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

FAMILY VALUES

19681968 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.

Matisse, in the Jardin des Tuileries, 1904

19681968 views77 comments66 favs

The World's Worst Mime stood there next to the iron carousel, portraying something, and the crowd understood none of it, except that whatever thing he was trying to portray was not being portrayed well at all.

soft soap

19681968 views1212 comments1212 favs

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

Suspended

19671967 views99 comments88 favs

In the beginning the revolution was all motion and energy. When the President for Life resigned motion and energy disappeared with the sounds of clapping hands.

Cut

19671967 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.

Three Thirds

19671967 views44 comments22 favs

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

Yakkety-Yak

19671967 views33 comments33 favs

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

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 4: In Which A Long Walk Is Considered

19671967 views11 comment00 favs

The summer before cancer—the summer of the boy/friend, the summer before Max started high school, the summer when all the decisions about blowing apart their marriage were made—they drove to Martha's Vineyard. Astrid had insisted she wasn't going, rig

Here Comes the Sun

19671967 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

19671967 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.

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19661966 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 Whippy Guy

19661966 views11 comment00 favs

He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

Wednesdays They Pay Us, But Now It's Thursday

19661966 views1616 comments1414 favs

fire rolls through the drive-thru

Confessions of a Liturgical Voyeur

19661966 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.

Welcome to the Dark Walls

19661966 views99 comments88 favs

“No one ever notices everything: but sometimes it happens, when no one is noticing everything, everyone misses the same thing in the same moment . . ."

Rock On

19661966 views2525 comments1212 favs

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

Riddle 44 from the Exeter Book: The Key

19661966 views11 comment22 favs

Curiously made thing

Three Network News Ledes on the Death of Jimmy Buffet

19661966 views44 comments11 fav

“He spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze, and now Jimmy Buffet is dead.” —Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News “Jimmy Buffet—beloved parrot-head singer-songwriter—has given up his search for that lost shaker of salt. He…

Peach

19661966 views44 comments11 fav

"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?"