Most read stories

The Martians Are Coming

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"I read a cute animal story yesterday," I tell them. "And I was filled with rage. I can't live like this. There must be no more bears, or hamster-bears, or manatees, being hopeless and depressed. There must be no more cute animal stories—ever."

Anhedonia (excerpt 2)

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Crazy. I really hate when people use that word.

Dog Days

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I dreamt I was spinning down the coast in a convertible. It was warm, and the top was down.

Poop

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That’s what she left behind, and I put it in my mouth and swallowed.

Shana (Refuse)

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Papa said he'd be in the stands watching: section H, 5th row, seat 35. During warmups, she had looked, during stretches, she had looked, but she had stopped looking right before the race."Don't worry about me," he had said. "Focus on the race," so when the man had said on…

2 and 2

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I was a six year old with no bike. Only the males in my familyhad that privilege. So one morning I got up very early, before the older siblings awoke, crept out the back porch door where Iknew there would be two bikes in the yard just waiting for me and my…

Hygiene

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I peed on Rick’s toothbrush. I nearly repented and cleansed it with hydrogen peroxide in the middle of the night. But I didn’t.

GRANDMA FLYNN

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She shoved a small bottle under her aprons and came towards me, darkening the passageway from “Ancestor” by Thomas Kinsella The night I heard the Banshee she passed away. In my screaming fear dada and mama woke. …

Forever Four-Eyed

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I'm a librarian. A reader. I identify as a four-eyed person. I've always worn glasses. I got my first pair in the second grade. It was a miracle! The blurry world I'd inhabited all my life suddenly came into focus. I could see the blackboard! I could read street signs! I…

A Body Divided, 6

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When I finally went back to school in the fourth grade, after coming down with polio, my classmates were very welcoming, though I couldn't go outside and run around like them yet at recess or lunch time. That would come, just not right away. But it was th

Dangling About

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Looking at his pale and pimpled flesh, he was repulsed by his flaccid and lifeless member. The accompanying bits, dangled about far from his frame as the summer heat drew them away from his sweaty and unwashed body.

Four Prospects from a Spanish Garden

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(For Dancer and Guitar) …

If The Fire Is Not In Your Apartment

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If you get crushed in New York City that's your own problem.

A Clean Tent

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“No,” he says. A simple lie. “I -” He pushes the sleeping bag off of his legs. Their getaway reset was a mistake.

The Insured

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Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac

Wingless messenger

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a bird who gives messages

Right Now

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I want to talk like Rose Tyler, and be whisked away by the strapping Docor, preferably in David Tennant form.

Virginity

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It rises rigid and plumb from its heavy base, the severity of line yielding to grace only at the throat where it crests into a subtly constrictive pinch.

The Escapists

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I sought to feel something. I hunted my mortality. I craved that rush of life pulsating through my veins.

My Name is Philippe

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I ought to see, in Mr. Smith's dilated pupils, the projection of his last reverie.

Heroic

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This is an older story that was inspired by research on naming conventions while trying to find record of my own ancestors in the Ukraine. I did not find them. Instead I was inspired to write this.

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

Truth Or Consequence - 4

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"When we say something is good, beautiful, pious, or brave, what idea or image do we hold in our mind?"

The Eleventh Commandment

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I never thought I’d miss the sound of church bells, reminding me of my sudden apostasy, faintly ringing over the rumpus where even the birds can’t get a word in edgeways.

25 Cents at a Time

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He never bothered converting the tip money he pocketed at the Imperial Street 24 hour car wash as his world was replete with 25 cent transactions, making quarters the perfect coin for his realm.

I Remember Kitty D.

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When the car arrived, Kitty bounded out, lipstick-stained cigarette dangling, silver hair tightly teased. We could not escape her hug, smelling of peppermint and Aqua-Net and Jean Nate.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 1

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The DC-9 bounced in the turbulence over the north Pacific waking the dozing Ben Clarone.

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…

Quail

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I can’t take my eyes off a tall blonde with green eyes. I catch her eye.

Catholics

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Sundays after Mass, Sister Edburga gathered the team in the shower room, we stripped naked in a circle, held hands and said a prayer we’d win our game. A boy no one knew walked alongside her with a box full of jockstraps.