Most read stories

Parts 2 Through 5 of a piece called Wilderness of Humanity, or, We Can Always Clean This Thing Up Again

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2. humility You know what silly does? Silly guarantees that you will enjoy the moment as the moment for the moment. Clowns make fun of silly. Isn't that ironic? They are in essence the opposite of their own image. That's why so many people see them as evil--because you…

Magnum Opus

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The scaffolding had been difficult to construct. The rock floor of the bluff offered no purchase, so he'd been forced to anchor braces to the trees behind, then span some thirty feet. A cantilevered gallows reached another fifteen feet past the stage...

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 Whippy Guy

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He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

Wrong Number

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The package arrived, delivered to her work as was her preference. She took it to the ladies room and sat on the lounge, carefully opening the box, removing the new black patent leather FMQs, pulling out the tissue paper stuffed into the toes and placing her well-worn…

Ashes

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

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…

The Atlantic

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Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote this of them

Novembering

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Cinnamon and smoke infuse the days that shorten, chill, accelerate.

The Laughing Grave

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Newhouse returned his gaze to his wet palm, which he lifted to his nose with suspicion, sniffed again and again, then struggled to move out from under the growing stream.

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,…

Da Capo

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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.

As Pleat

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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.

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.

Sunday Cookout

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She thrust her proboscis through seven layers of dermis and began to suck, filling her belly with his Welbutrin and Xanax infused blood.

Where Is Daddy?

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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.

Things That Glow

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The tiny green light flashing in the lawn of an apartment building one night that caught Roberta’s attention while we were walking home from Café Vita.

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.

A Journey of Seven Thousand Miles

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The taste of / what is denied us is always sweet

The Fugitive Waits

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The wind rushed by her and she heard the faint sound of barking. And then she knew why she was coming. And she ran.

Letters from the Asylum (3)

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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.

Small Change

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Life seemed okay…for the most part.

soft soap

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

Yakkety-Yak

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

City of Masks

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"There is something in the air. It makes people sick, makes them want to die. They cannot inhale too deeply for fear that it will turn them mad."

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.

How I Left Onandaga County

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So, like I said. Da. I have dealt with the men, when I was a lap dancer. The men they need the….manipulations. I have good hands. They want me to see them naked, their power. Here it is only the women. The massage, the facial, the waxing...

A Natural Consequence of Things

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Belief is a hammer, like saying the mind is a piece of iron.

Mule

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Sometimes cats had to die or dogs

For Dejan S. & Bob V. & Gordy B.

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Put blisters on your fingers and Put plasters on your head but Put peppers on your privates and You’ll wish that you were dead!