Most read stories

Hemingway On Trash Day

19531953 views22 comments00 favs

The morning sun rose up over the flat prairie, and the powdery snow crunched as you walked on it, and the air was so crisp it hurt as you took a breath. That is good, I thought. That is how you knew you were alive, and I was truly very alive, and there was not much to do so…

Me & Sylvia Plath

19531953 views1111 comments44 favs

The parallels have become too numerous, and too striking, to ignore.

It's a Beautiful Banana Moon

19521952 views88 comments88 favs

and I can't help it if it is. I know it won't stay that way for long, but for now that's all I've got to work with, shining in my window, made of all eight fingers and a couple of thumbs. But the latest pushy words still want to give…

Cheque Republic

19521952 views77 comments33 favs

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

The Art of Joy

19521952 views00 comments00 favs

The girl who was me stands in a sandbox with upraised arms, honey hair tied with olive yarn in two ponytails. She says nothing, but wants me to pick her up.

Getting It Wrong

19521952 views11 comment00 favs

As Gino exited the supermarket, plastics bags in tow, he began doing curls with his right arm. He’d been doing this for years, reasoning that he might as well get some exercise during the walk home.

Harry, A Slow Learning Curve

19521952 views22 comments11 fav

He’d been wishing for months that he’d bought a retro clothing store. He would have called it HARRY’S HOARY HOSERRY. He would have met a better class of women.

Not Lao-tzu's Yellow Brick Road, xxviii - xxxvii

19521952 views99 comments77 favs

master carvers do not reduce with carving.

Star Heart

19521952 views1111 comments1111 favs

This is the place I could find my breath. I didn'tSay I understood it. I only wanted to hold someone andMeant to. I don't care about the rules for caring.This place where I could speak was incredibly far from Where I'd once met you. The place where I could…

With My Eye

19521952 views1212 comments77 favs

my space heater throws a pale orange light my white candles flicker in the middle of the night

Didn't I always let you have one of my cigarettes?

19521952 views2222 comments1212 favs

I liked the taste in my mouth, mint and cigarettes and fresh and filthy.

The Nudist Camp at the End of the Rainbow

19521952 views1111 comments55 favs

What did they even invent clothing for? I asked.

That Buddhist Swing

19521952 views77 comments33 favs

We spend life, or much of it rather, chasing epiphanies promised to us by hip prophets and free spirits.

Museo Libo

19521952 views1313 comments1010 favs

He'd tend the door himself in high lace up boots, orange rhinestone hot pants, a tight black t-shirt, and black boa with orange swirl.

Hysteria

19521952 views1515 comments1010 favs

On the birthday before he started school, he received a pencil case from his paternal grandparents. The violet, oblong pouch contained a pencil and a pencil sharpener in the same color. He didn't remember what had happened with the pencil or the sharpener, but he had…

One Billionth of a Lifetime

19521952 views00 comments00 favs

Bill was queasy, short of breath, his chest tightening. He was next. How he hated this game of confession. It was harder than going to a priest, which at least allowed a measure of anonymity. True, these were friends, yet, in terms of the game, he was vastly…

MindLight

19521952 views11 comment11 fav

{Chapter iv of Undermind} "What do you think of the light in our city at night?" It spreads out in every direction, following the hills and valleys of the city, visible into the far distance from the Penthouse party room on the 44th floor. "Gorgeous!…

Cake

19511951 views2525 comments1717 favs

A little poem

Land of Our Fathers

19511951 views22 comments11 fav

He called me one Friday when I was a kid and told me he wanted to go trout fishing. He had dreamt that I was a worm or a fly -- he couldn't remember which -- but he was sure I would bring good luck to the stream. The next morning, before grandma awoke, I

Pectoralis Minor

19511951 views11 comment11 fav

Her thumbs tucked beneath the waistline of her pants, slightly pulling them down to expose the eternity between belly button and bliss. I looked up at her as I slid my tongue along the rail of her hip, sucking at its point.

Flamingos

19511951 views33 comments11 fav

Over fifty plastic flamingos stood silently at attention... as if eating sea urchins out of our lawn.

He Spreadeth Sharp Pointed Things upon the Mire

19511951 views1818 comments1313 favs

My uncle looks into the bleached eye of his cat and asks "What happened to my ear?" The meerkat’s eye replies: "You had cancer. Remember? They had to cut off your ear to save you."

Free Time

19511951 views00 comments00 favs

The desk calendar was brilliant, unused. The problems with it didn't begin until March.

Burn

19511951 views1111 comments1010 favs

I should have known to wear boots on Teddy’s motorcycle, but I didn’t know that when the engine heated the exhaust pipe became hot as a griddle. Teddy didn’t warn me, and I thought there was something wrong with that, but I let it go the way I jumped on h

In Passing

19511951 views11 comment11 fav

I'm not hungry now The darkness swallows me as they eat. I'm starving now With a pain I can't defeat.

Changing a Flat

19501950 views99 comments77 favs

Dark, green grass covered the pasture like millions of tiny fingers swaying in the heat.

The Energy of Girls

19501950 views1212 comments77 favs

Emma and I were in a shabby part of town with vacant lots and overgrown yards, and I wondered if something would happen as we loped beside Tom, who was slow-witted and 21. We were 13 . . .

That is That

19501950 views77 comments66 favs

Alexander Ivanovich stuck out his leg and tripped Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev. Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev stood up, took two steps forward, stuck out his leg and tripped Alexander Ivanovich.

Lost In Space

19501950 views00 comments00 favs

He was jolted awake from his light slumber by his pod crash landing. Landing? That means he found a planet. He opened the pod and got out to stretch his legs. He looked around. "Wow, and I thought Aleria was advanced. This is amazing."

The Spoken World

19501950 views1313 comments33 favs

The spoken world is bigger than I had ever imagined it to be, wonderful and relentless and unforgiving, and to be a part of it was my grandest childhood fantasy. I don’t know what the world sees me as now, but inside I will always be a stutterer.