Most read stories

Slave to the Rhinestone

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He introduced himself as Jimmy Stamps and shook my hand with the confidence of a man who is Microsoft Windows certified. Reeking of vodka and Swisher Sweets he proceeded to expatiate on the virtues of X

Sky Without a Song

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He hung up and I sang some whiney lyric about wanting him back. You know the songs that say the same shit: I’m an idiot. Love me anyway. I’m Velcro with nothing to stick to and you’re a nappy surface that gives me a reason to exist.

Heart of Gold

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"Cooperation and sharing could eliminate poverty."

One Regrettable Talent for Tragedy

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Vandalina embarked on her career of serious dramatic roles to widespread acclaim, her depth of feeling and potency of delivery winning her thunderous ovations and gushing reviews . . .

The Rhythm of the Cows

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A cow wanders onto a roof and falls through the skylight. It's a calamity, but such an innocent mistake. Mightn't you amble onto a rooftop once upon a full winter snow in Vermont?Another cow climbs a gravel mound in…

The Boss of Bosses

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The one thing my father told me that I want to believe is true . . .

TITLE

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Someone had shown me a page on the internet where writers could have their stories analyzed, seeing whose work their piece was similar to. Normally, I only went on the computer to find apartment listings and pornography.

Breathing

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After only a few months’ practice I am able to dive deep within myself. Inhale. A millisecond stop and I am under the surface. I know there is something here within myself – some treasure that I have come to find.

Creator

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What purpose other than misery/ can cancer serve? And Parkinson's,/ AIDS, and STDs?

3 Poems

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We have always been a trashy species./ We study ourselves by examining/ garbage-- a pile of mussel shells here,

Paperclip

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The Americans don't want us. They want knowledge. They want to eat with us. They want technology and weapons. They want the results of research they themselves are too craven to perform, answers to questions they ask themselves in whispers, in the dark. T

The Red Suitcase: (Conclusion)

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—You must be joking, he laughed.

'My Mother Was My Sister' — Rejection Letter to a Young Writer (Memoir)

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When I was 10 or 11, some people thought that my father was my grandfather, that my brother was my father, and that my mother was my sister!

If we thought that love was gone

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

Fair-Weather Best Friends Forever

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“How scared?” Mikey said, not wanting to find out, and already looking pretty nervous.

Building

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he told me to be careful,my feet may bleedI watched him walk up and down the path,occasionally bendingwhy?carpenter nails, pieces of broken shinglesall along the pathnow I know why

-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.

Lost in Suomi

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Wind pummeled me awake, smelling of pine and some quality of newness I could not identify...

Drift

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Dreams & foghorns.

Ophelia

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Her ghost/kept coming back/to Hamlet

Extra Ticket

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My best friend died yesterday. His name was Franklin Seever, but we all called him Lin. It started when we were in Little League. There were two Franklins on the team so Coach, who was my dad, called the fat one Frank and my best friend Lin.

Edward Ogle the Third

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Assimilated wheat germ integrated ant worm the capital of brazil.

Tuscaloosa

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

Baking Bread

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the champagne foam cascades like cherry blossom ensnared in the first gales of spring

Paris in the the Spring

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he thought of her / longingly

Searching for a poem

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Each person in each car could be poetic/ Duende, but they look at each other and ask/“Did you fart?”

Clockwork

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At any moment, she'll come outside to pick up the day’s newspaper. He can see it resting beneath the blooming crape myrtle, its plastic wrapper glistening with dew.

Maritzer's Axiom

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We were just as bourgeois as Bloomingdale’s, one generation past canned ravioli dinners with cheap white bread.

The Signal

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I take the plastic off of the last videotape and stick it in the VCR. I make sure the channel is on 6. Still a commercial. I get my notebook, turn it to the next page and write today's date on top. I get ready. I don't really like the back and forth banter the other news…

Internet Hole (an excerpt from Psychopomp)

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Seventeen-year cicadas are the sometimes-singers that surprise spring with the ugliest mouths of all.