Most read stories

Ninja

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She catches my head in a leg scissors and says for me to say Ninja Uncle. Instead, I bite into her flesh that only remotely tastes like a soft salt pretzel.

Parrot

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"Your mother does sailors," the parrot screeched.

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.

Laughingly rejected by The New Yorker

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...and we laughed.

Potentially Naked Waitress

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

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.

Tales from an Indiscriminate Record Collection

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45s I’ve kept wrapped in newspaper in the attic. These are all mine. Some doubling up in sleeves. Some pushing tears in the seams.

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.

City Girls Never Need Car Keys

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But they all know the parking prayer...

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.

Autumn in the Afterward

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A year after we'd last spoken I can still remember your commentary, our ill-fated reunion at the baggage claim forever immortalized as this solitary instance of unobstructed joy.

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.

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…

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.

The Argument

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"What mouths could not say, hands did."

Halfhearted Objections

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The old man behind the counter recognizes fear and anxiety in the boy's face, and sees the brown paper bag clenched in his other white-knuckled hand.

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…

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.

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.

Being In Love Is For High Schoolers Or Middle Aged Divorcees

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But who am I kidding. We aren’t in love. Being in love is for high schoolers or middle aged divorcees exploring their sexuality. Our love is real, sweaty, backwards, forwards, angry, trusting. We love as you only can after seeing someone at their best and

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.

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…

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.

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.

All the Broken People

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We all// fall short and fail.

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!” …