Most read stories

five discards or less

19361936 views66 comments55 favs

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

Dog Days

19361936 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.

The Atlantic

19361936 views2020 comments88 favs

Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote this of them

Gazpacho

19361936 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.

Albatross Antics

19351935 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…

toupee

19351935 views11 comment00 favs

It wasn't until about 2:30 that my hairpiece began mauling small children.

Where Is Daddy?

19351935 views66 comments55 favs

He checks the bedrooms first, then the hallway, followed by the living room and the bathrooms. When he can't find you he takes to calling out, daddy, I'm sure the neighbors hear.

I've Got a Secret

19351935 views1818 comments1212 favs

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

Cucumbertini

19351935 views44 comments22 favs

“Really? And you write…?” asked her breasts in the black dress, making excellent eye contact. He smiled at them.

Giacometti

19351935 views2020 comments55 favs

He tells me that only a few things had happened in his life but some of them he had felt deeply.

Life of Charlotte

19351935 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.

Girl Friends

19351935 views00 comments00 favs

Two women grab a table near a window in a coffee shop. Outside, the sky is the color of dulled aluminum. It is early spring and pollen assaults the air with a tint of sulfur.

Da Capo

19341934 views2020 comments1010 favs

Their bodies, ripe uncovered flesh, had begun to erode, the edges of their limbs and cores bitten, taken by the wind in small pieces, flaking and tearing, some parts sliding, falling away.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 9

19341934 views00 comments00 favs

As we sat at the cafe, Darrell told me that he had to make a mushroom delivery to one of his clients in Berkeley. I never knew whether it was legal or illegal business he was on, and he made a point of not telling me, because he said it was better I didn

Peach (2)

19341934 views1111 comments66 favs

He has stubby, rough little fingers. Good.

Hot Dog Hot Dog

19341934 views44 comments44 favs

A man on the sidewalk dressed as a hot dog hits a triangle dinner bell with a clang and yells for everyone to come and eat at Hot Dog Hot Dog. We were feeling more like fish and chips or spicy pulled pork, but there's something about how…

The Whippy Guy

19341934 views11 comment00 favs

He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

Ashes

19341934 views77 comments66 favs

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

soft soap

19341934 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

19341934 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!

19341934 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...

Faith

19341934 views44 comments22 favs

your leather jacket zip has left a row of teethmarks on her arm

The Same

19331933 views1212 comments99 favs

The bus is late; the papers disappear. The china breaks, and the suit does not fit.

quacking

19331933 views1010 comments55 favs

there she was, this beautiful duck with her 4 beautiful babies, under my bush.

No More Tears

19331933 views55 comments11 fav

When Bill was in the hospital, one month bleeding into the next, his mother visited exactly twice, both times complaining of the things she needed or couldn’t get rid of: mop heads, bleach, dustpans, detergents, grease, turgid water in the basement. And

A D O N I S

19331933 views33 comments00 favs

They sprinkled me in the holes of Auburn Maine. They covered me in grain, and salmon colored sand. My shell had swirls of chartreuse, and chocolate painted on it. I was made from glass and Gods left eye. Picked and sorted through, we all landed into a tiny paper bag…

Voronezh. Samara. Tyumen.

19331933 views88 comments55 favs

They have a saying in Russia: Live in Voronezh, work in Samara, die in Tyumen. In honour of Saint Rose, born on the banks of the Voronezh, fed the hungry and the poor of Samara, torn apart by wolves in Tyumen on the exact date that she had herself predict

Pumpkin Patch

19331933 views11 comment00 favs

Artie invited me to go with him to pick out a Halloween Pumpkin for the house. I had recently moved into a communal living situation and we were still getting to know each other. Artie was the kind of person who made a special occasion out of ordinary life. Why…

Laughing, Crying

19331933 views55 comments44 favs

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…

The Madness of the Gods

19331933 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…