Most read stories

Razor Wire

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I flip up my hoodie, pull the string tight across my lips until it cuts into them, pull tighter, saw back and forth until blood warms the hairs on my chin.

Suspended

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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.

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

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"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…

The Queue

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She persisted. “How long have we been here?” A note of anger crept into his voice. “How long? How long? Why …, why ….” He swallowed hard, realized he had forgotten.

Casting It

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

A Girl / An Elderly Woman / A Bear

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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.

Dick Be Gone

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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.

Laughing, Crying

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It was Brad, for short; or so he would say. But really his name was Bradford, and he was a writer. He had almost always lived in New York. He was only half-white. His mother had run away with a black man in the sixties. Her father had told her to never come back to…

Golgotha

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They were starting to get winded. The boy, his father and his little brother were hiking up a hill, cutting a diagonal path through hay-colored grass towards an outcrop of craggy boulders below the hill's summit.

Life of Charlotte

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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.

The Sky-What Limit?

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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,…

When the Witness Calls

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Here they come, those witnesses.

Mt. Hood

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To what better worlds remain.

Peach (2)

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He has stubby, rough little fingers. Good.

True Vocation

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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

Assay the Assail

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No one is a Puritan under all that powder!

Ashes

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Now, the Midwest was ashes. The oceans were covered with hydroponics plant growth.

Chicagoo (from Swink literary journal)

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When Kim handed me some of her husband’s condoms—“Here, use these”—out of one of their bedroom dresser drawers, could she sense the astonishment I was trying my best not to show?

Curb Appeal

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He kept the lawn mowed at the perfect height. He mowed it twice a week to one inch. Some weeks he mowed it a third time for good measure.

Flowers for Our Dead Lovers

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We brought flowers for our dead lovers

The Big Game

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The vampire donated floodlights so the children could play ballgames at night. The lights came on but the dugouts remained vacant. The vampire sat alone in the bleachers. “Sometimes I am less than the sum of my parts,” he said to the sum of his parts.

Lines with Billie Holiday

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It is almost as if there isn’t a wedge of wood between us – I can feel him inches away from me. I can’t control the sigh or the tears that escape my body.

The Quiet Room by Doug Holder

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I keep my life very ordered. Order for me is security. I am sure of some things. Like the fact I work five nights a week, and sleep during the day.

Visiting Sally

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Buddy was in a garage band. They were pretty good. “Soul Harbor“ they called themselves.

Game Night

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We’re all competitive and drunk.

Dog Days

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The air is dry and smoky from a fire some miles away. The air is cool. A pair of vultures is soaring in a circle high above the rising land.

The Atlantic

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Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote this of them

Cheque Republic

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Maybe she thinks in Czech, dreams in German, pretends in English. Babylon is a beautiful place after all.

Folded Up

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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,…

All I Know About Grandfather

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There were days in my youth when, through no fault of their own, my parents could not drive me the seven mile trip to my elementary school. When I got older they bought me a bike and that proved duly adequate as conveyance. But when I was six years in age