Most read stories

The Year, In Review

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And him, now there’s a him. I’d like if he were perfect, but perfect things never are. My daughter says it best, when she contrasts the two of you, “Daddy worked to forget about his problems. When he works, it makes him feel like there is a problem.”

A Spark and a Flash

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Butchie was the one who heard about the bonfire happening over on Harrison Avenue.

Wasps' Nest

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Here’s how you do it. First you get a ladder, a long one.

Charms L.P.

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Funny, you can drink wine and eat stale crackers, but you cannot suck a simple lollipop? Where does it say that in the bible? Nowhere, that’s where.

Helmet

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The tiles begin inching toward him as soon as he moves. You've seen filings on glass. He's the magnet on the underside.

Matisse, in the Jardin des Tuileries, 1904

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The World's Worst Mime stood there next to the iron carousel, portraying something, and the crowd understood none of it, except that whatever thing he was trying to portray was not being portrayed well at all.

Spring Uprising

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Some people might find it strange and a bit obsessive to mow their lawn every day, but to Shiram it was an irreplaceable part of his daily existence.

juvenile haiku

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leaves of a season/float into a brook among/bubbles fit to burst.

VCR CIA

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When VCRs were invented in the 1970s, the first big user segment was people who wanted to watch porno films in the comfort of their own home. Troy and Lynn's upstairs neighbor, James, an enlisted man in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, had a vast porn…

Yesterday That Monday's Sun

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wrenched its lower back trying so hard to lift too many stacked November clouds off the newly shaved prickly heads of the slowly freezing trees,like ring weights,and had to spend the last of its hours setting in a small square box in…

Three: A Heavenly Mansion

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She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s

New Town, New Beginning

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That's what friends told him.He looks at the unpacked boxes around the apartment, hoping he hadn't packed any of her stuff in his haste.

A man with bleeding hands

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A man with bleeding hands at the back door of Out of the Closet this morning asked me for the bride and groom figurines at the top of my donation box

What She Thought It Was

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She refuses to let her eyes cry. Her eyes played tricks on her and showed her one thing was really another. They don't deserve to cry.

Charlotte

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Half way through our cigarettes she told me her name was Charlotte.

A Question of Choice

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The contrast can be summed up in a sip.

Hungry

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D'ya have to be so rough?

Maine

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A constellation appears in the shape of Van Gogh’s missing ear.

We All Look So Perfect As We All Fall Down

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My server wore cat's eye glasses, a Wonderbra that made her breasts like the embryos from Alien wanting to burst their way out of her Hooters t-shirt but couldn't.

Catherine

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Love free of independence is a savage, hungry beast Phantoms grasping, sweating, gasping 'till her mind could not be freed

Me and the Fleeting Glimpse

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I worry about my garden. I know there are larger concerns lurking in the stale shadows than my limp little flowers, things more pressing to the meeting of minds than thick lush green leaves might bring, but this is my own greenish way of …

The Bridge

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The Bridge Barstow had not wanted to listen to Griff. Griff was not making the right decisions, or he thought Griff was not making the right decisions. Thought he was walking a…

He Spreadeth Sharp Pointed Things upon the Mire

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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."

Domesticity

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The Marigold gloves are yellow (figures!) and medium, the apron ironed with a touch of starch added...

Please, tell me of the smell of the moon

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Do you know first hiss of batter hitting groundnut oil in a shallow pan, I ask, on a morning after a long, dream-ridden sleep?

The Energy of Girls

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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 . . .

Lost Dream

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It’s a song you knew once, begin to remember now: You’ve had this dream before.

Bird

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That was really the problem with leaving. She had to leave everything, could take none of the perfection with her. Anything she took would’ve been too little, or too much, once removed. Once not in his house, not in his vision or touch, the magic would

Parcel

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you hear the knell of kindness long before its cathedral voices -- a recessional -- barters better times.

Similarities

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She was skinny and with breasts like a wound up skein of yarn.