Most read stories

True Vocation

19531953 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

Hymen

19531953 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.

Yakkety-Yak

19531953 views33 comments33 favs

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

Bravo, Scrittore!

19531953 views44 comments00 favs

I hadn't yet assembled enough pieces of Italian to explain any of this, but it was hardly necessary. The fact that I was a scrittore in a language foreign to her seemed to make me especially fascinating...

Bon Bons

19521952 views88 comments33 favs

love notes yellowed through the years

Folded Up

19521952 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,…

Suspended

19521952 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.

Albatross Antics

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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…

Letting Go

19521952 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.

As Pleat

19521952 views1010 comments66 favs

I turn up the music and slip into drone, rock it like a tunnel in canary. When that does not erase his face, I cup my breast with one hand and let my hair fall.

Three Thirds

19521952 views44 comments22 favs

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

I've Got a Secret

19521952 views1818 comments1212 favs

There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.

five discards or less

19521952 views66 comments55 favs

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

FAMILY VALUES

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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.

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19521952 views77 comments22 favs

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

Dick Be Gone

19521952 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.

Dog Days

19521952 views1818 comments1717 favs

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.

haircut month

19521952 views55 comments44 favs

The same night your best friend of two years called you up to tell you they don't want to think about you anymore was the same night you had stood silently, leaning, head against the mustard wall in your mom's boyfriend's house, stuck listening to Randy…

Life of Charlotte

19521952 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.

The Sky-What Limit?

19521952 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,…

AA For the Suicidal - alt.punk extract

19511951 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.”

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

19511951 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.

Encasement

19511951 views22 comments00 favs

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

The Lonely Genius

19511951 views88 comments99 favs

was washing her hands and lookingin the mirror and hoping tosee someone who could tell herthe way home again. She wasn'tsure why she should want to go there except maybe to findthe missing piece that had alwayseluded her. The lonely genius puton her clothes but the…

The Atlantic

19511951 views2020 comments88 favs

Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote this of them

The Chicken In A Can Incident: A Cautionary Christmas Tale

19511951 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

Gazpacho

19511951 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.

The Good Sounds of Squeamish Language

19501950 views66 comments44 favs

Accuracy is a prediction

The Unpublished Writer and His Love Interest (The Painter)

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When the writer expressed with subtle alacrity that he adored the painter, she was flattered and didn't raise objection. The writer-in his aloof manner, with experienced caution-pointedly wrote a poem directly for his muse. She never spoke of it, and hi

Antigone Détente

19501950 views1717 comments1414 favs

Tan my hide. Feed me to rabid / macaques.