Most read stories

Keep the Change

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Jacob could tell it was a man he had just walked past, a broken man with an olive green Vietnam era military jacket, a man who had probably served his country as honorably as anyone chosen at lottery and forced to kill for a subsistence wage…

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.

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.

Laughingly rejected by The New Yorker

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...and we laughed.

Wasps' Nest

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

Spinning

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Ride me, I say, and you never hear. No matter how I shine my padding, it's never what draws you to me. I only get to touch you when you feel guilty, and most of the time, it's only through shorts and graduated compression socks. What does my desire matter? It all comes out…

Potentially Naked Waitress

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just wondering what one does when age and job skills narrow one's career options

The Goldsmith's Anniversary

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He searched for something deserving of the word “bestowed,” something so rare as to horrify the clerics of ordinariness.

The Argument

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"What mouths could not say, hands did."

Incidentally

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It started (or maybe ended) with the boot flying off the balcony and bouncing in the dead grass in front of our building.

Love, a comet, omens and wings

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My love for him like wax wings/ so long they stretched eternal— beating in the sky, grazing peaks,

Well, I LOVE Darkness . . . But I've Chosen YOU!!!

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The elevator door opened, and Tom ("The Baffler") Frank found himself confronted by Jesu bar Joseph, who opined: "You're WORTHLESS!" and recommended: "Why dontcha PULL your PANTS down, and CUT your COCK off!"

MYTHO-THERAPY ON THE BLINK

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Once upon a time, not so long ago in Los Angeles, Jack and Jill Woodman’s father remarried.

2006, What I Wanted

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freedom from my mind

Oedipus Speaks

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I don’t know what happened. One day I was in her room, groping the various drawers for hidden condoms, glimpses of women’s undergarments and I found a spectacular pair of blue lace panties

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

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master carvers do not reduce with carving.

Luc

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Her wrinkles came into focus, the sort of old woman's face photographed for coffee tables and art galleries and corporate boardrooms, for prize juries and grant selection committees, and Luc searched his formidable memory for an exact match. Over the long, tedious…

Dreamphone Sleepover

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Cassie cradles the loaf-sized phone – pinker than any girl – and dials. he's not wearing a hat says the phone and we all scratch our pencils on the boy-list.

Our 2015 Holiday Letter…Sort Of

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“Why do I have to sign these cards? You haven't written your dreaded holiday letter yet.” “I told you not to complain or you'd be the one writing it. And addressing the envelopes. Then you can stamp them and take them to the Post Office!” …

Oaxaca Dreamland

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She thinks she trusts this man; she wants to trust him. His face reminds her of a man who once took care of her on an airplane when she was a kid traveling by herself.

Arcana Magi Behind the Scenes: The Rule of Mana Ver 2.0

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A Nonfiction behind the scenes look at how Mana works in the world of Arcana Magi.

Lipstick in the Kitchen

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In the middle of the floor squatted a sway-backed butcher block that appeared to have been chopped upon with such force as to make it cower.

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.

Listen To Our Birds

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We know a poem isn't going to stop you From invading our town. It won't get you to Listen to our birds any more than to our Sunsets. That's not why we do it. We know A poem isn't going to break the blade of Your knife like an…

The Hiders

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The Kharal kept us safe, we knew, kept the colony functional in the oft belabored effort that was living our small, human lives surrounded by death, for in their ring of constant invisible protection, when they did not come, we thrived. It was not as tho

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…

The Spoken World

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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.

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.

Egypt.

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When the sky was thinner and water faster, we would chase the falling stars.