Most read stories

Dick Be Gone

19721972 views33 comments22 favs

One thing about being a musician—more specifically a drummer—struggling against the cost of living—more specifically the cost of living in the Bay Area—is that I will do just about anything to earn money.

The Madness of the Gods

19721972 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

19721972 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.

Cut

19711971 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.

Weary

19711971 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.

True Vocation

19711971 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)

19711971 views1616 comments99 favs

homelessness, you called the lie,

soft soap

19711971 views1212 comments1212 favs

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

Yakkety-Yak

19711971 views33 comments33 favs

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

The Ouija Board Guide to True Facts about Cremation

19711971 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.

THE DARK

19711971 views66 comments22 favs

The Dark It chokes It threatens To consume me Im Scared Mommy Im confused Everything is A Secret But I Know Who is that man You're withI call Uncle But I wait Outside Why does your hug Feel safe But anothers Feels So Wrong …

The Sky-What Limit?

19711971 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,…

Three Network News Ledes on the Death of Jimmy Buffet

19711971 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…

Folded Up

19701970 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,…

Conversation on Thanksgiving

19701970 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.

Three Thirds

19701970 views44 comments22 favs

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

Stories Around People

19701970 views1212 comments44 favs

Stories Around People An Event Facebook lived in midtown, for there the people and windows shone like water. Though it would board the bus—1 day—and ride to the sea, where people said words like sea and where the city shone in the waves…

FAMILY VALUES

19701970 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.

The Book Mind

19701970 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.

Welcome to the Dark Walls

19701970 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

19701970 views2525 comments1212 favs

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

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19691969 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.

Matisse, in the Jardin des Tuileries, 1904

19691969 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.

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

19691969 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

Modulus of Elasticity

19691969 views1919 comments1515 favs

The limbs lift again,

Life of Charlotte

19691969 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.

Here Comes the Sun

19691969 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

Antigone Détente

19681968 views1717 comments1414 favs

Tan my hide. Feed me to rabid / macaques.

Letters from the Asylum (3)

19681968 views22 comments11 fav

She stepped into a pair of high heeled slippers and began to dance. She was Salome, a witch, dancing like the most beautiful, the most skilled whores of Paris.

Three: A Heavenly Mansion

19681968 views33 comments33 favs

She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s