Most read stories

Lessons from a Pine

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I awake one morning to find that still, the leaves continue to fall.

A Gardener in February Thinks About June

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I want to be that daring gardener who ploughs up her front yard -- to the horror of the Neighborhood Association.

A Quantum of Disappointment

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Reality winks at us then scampers off

Toothbrush

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...and he would stumble from bed in a panic and fling the toothbrush at the mirror cursing all the while "fuck fuck why can't I forget her".

The Arks What Weren't

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Mrs. Noah eyed the thickening clouds from the front stoop. Noah was still out in the yard kicking up sand in disgust, arguing with himself the whole time. Piles of cedar timber lay strewn all about. Maybe if they’d lived even three days’ journey clos

Mermaid

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While the other kids blew bubbles, Maddy clung to my neck. She didn't cry or scream, and she held on loosely, not with the death grip some kids have. For five Wednesday afternoons, Maddy wrapped her pudgy arms over my shoulders and rested her bottom on m

Willy Takes the Night Train to Heaven

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a store called ROCKING FROCKS. In its window was a black tee shirt that said in big white letters, I'M NOT A SLUT, I'M WITH THE BAND.

Lockdown

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I'm explicating Emily Dickinson when the alarm starts: three long, two short. Lockdown mode. Only there was nothing in the staff bulletin about a drill. So I tell the students to get down on the floor, away from the window. I open the classroom door and lock it from…

-And Lurking Behind Quasar 3C295 . . .

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“Let’s see that great big telescope of yours,” she exhaled hotly, “I want to grind your lenses!” The doctoral candidate dutifully stood between her and his massive telescope so her hands would encounter some instrumentation with no optical components.

On Being Bald....

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Hair today...gone tomorrow The sun beats down on my balding crown.

RT @dadaism #amwriting

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How much do book editors earn? Peacock Love. (aww…)

When the Muse Abandons You

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I am abandoned to the mundane/ calculations of a small mind/ trapped by small considerations

Knell Quarternion

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The Jester sat down on the edge of his mattress. He laboured to bring one gout ridden leg up to lay across the other. The jingle bell at the tip of his pointed toe mocked each serrated movement of his limb with a jaunty tinkle. He grabbed his ankle to arrest its…

The Perfect Day

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Robbie Lange closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair. Yawning, he looked out the window into the black night. Another evening at the office, he thought. He counted the other lit windows in the skyscrapers around his building. “Goodnight, everyone

Cathy

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"Merry Christmas, Willie."

The Serious Writer Tracks His Stats

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The officers carried him away in cuffs as he yelled "I NEED STATS! PLEASE! JUST GIVE ME THE STATS!"

The Nest

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I am reaching out at you, to you from the nest. From the nest, please come to the nest, to see me and to hear my life story. From the nest I go, and then I arrive at the nest, suddenly, just in time to be…

Sports day at the School for Clowns

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The javelin was cancelled after the unfortunate incident with Mrs Parker last year, but no one could have predicted this year’s sack race tragedy.

Visiting You Without Her

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I bear the wrong gin. Your air conditioner runs cold. It is either frigid or off, the gauge broken. You are not too old to overlook these things. You can't be choosy, but you will never beg. Just an occasional choice as you settle into this…

Novembering

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Cinnamon and smoke infuse the days that shorten, chill, accelerate.

Tuscaloosa

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a Ferris wheel gently rocks its last riders then dumps them to the ground.

If we thought that love was gone

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If we thought that love was gone that out of sweetness none remained

Rose Gold

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He hasn't had a wedding ring in years. When George's knuckles began to swell — a little arthritis — his ring dug into his finger so bad his wife Loren took him to the ER and had it cut off. The ring, not the finger. He never knew there was a tool to cut rings,…

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…

Phantom

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I am in the hallway, but I don’t sense it. That is to say: I don’t feel my body. I am like a phantom, a limbless entity floating, flailing.

A Life

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Born, he stood up. He wore nothing as often as possible

RE[a]D

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Stop! the voice commands in a guttural shriek. Do not move. You are under arrest. But the voice is only in his head; he has created it the way a writer creates characters on a page, and it is just as real to him as if someone were really there.

Meander

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Things are a little out of hand. Information fills room after room after room. I have no bloody idea where I am. I have your photo, but the navigational coordinates are difficult to interpret. Where the hell are you, anyway? I don't like mazes — too much like…

Junctions / Decisions

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Next to you, the mother tightens her grip on her stroller. The young teenager tears her gaze from her mobile phone for an instant.

Graduation (For My Mother)

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I know I’m slipping into my mother’s skin. I answer the phone with her voice; her hands grind the coffee beans. And who is this listening to NPR in the morning while the fresh-faced girls in the neighborhood trudge toward school,, peonies han