Most read stories

Flipping Off People With Romney Bumper Stickers

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“Hey,” I begin, a naughty smile breaking across my face before I can get to the punchline, “Want to drive around flipping off anyone with a Romney bumper sticker?” Kaleb chuckles and beams at me. It seems everyone likes a good girl turned naughty.

Poop

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

My Name is Philippe

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

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…

Librarians! What Are We Hiding?

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Librarians are hiding something. What is it?

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

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master carvers do not reduce with carving.

Potentially Naked Waitress

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

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.

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.

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.

City Girls Never Need Car Keys

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But they all know the parking prayer...

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.

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

Quail

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

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

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…

All the Broken People

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We all// fall short and fail.

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.

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.

boomeander

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A CEO would also be a an EOC, only inside-out and backward. But upside-down, both are still what they are.

Until the Dawn (part 1)

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Tara was so tired. The bus connection was off again, and her ankles were so swollen. Maybe it was the heat, the humidity, she wasn't sure… but things were definitely getting worse. She sighed. At least the bus shelter had an empty spot on the bench, so as she…

2006, What I Wanted

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freedom from my mind

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…