Most read stories

Prologue: April 16, 1970

18251825 views11 comment11 fav

The muster zone was south of U.S. 119, off the Halleck Road. The search began on a large parcel, some 75 acres of farmland, property of one Mr. Shakelford. Shakelford had allowed the earth to go wild; brush, thistle and small…

Afterwards

18251825 views88 comments22 favs

It takes twelve years for the hot water to run out and your skin has not even begun to prune.

The Cicada's Cry

18251825 views11 comment22 favs

In the cicada's cry No sign can foretell How soon it must dieBasho "Hear the locusts?" The woman lifts the child's head. "Hear em, baby?" The child looks blankly in the…

Graduation (For My Mother)

18251825 views33 comments33 favs

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

The Adventures of Tequila Kitty: Chapter 3 - by Brian Lepire

18251825 views11 comment11 fav

I’d made it to the motel parking lot when I heard the footsteps. A sombrero may make me look good, but it does shit for my hearing, so the bastards were able to scoop me up real quick. The first one gave me a hard slap on the top of the head with an opene

Writer's Cough

18251825 views66 comments66 favs

Ok, so I’m sitting here trying to write through a frigging cold. And I. . .Oops, . . . . . . wait a sec!. . . I’m stopped, astounded, stunned between coughing my left lung clear over my keyboard and watching it flopping on the back of my desk. . .

Drift

18251825 views1414 comments77 favs

Dreams & foghorns.

3 Poems

18251825 views1717 comments1414 favs

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

A Black Cat

18251825 views66 comments44 favs

And then, and then, and then! After all that, this. After all that bullshit with her Dad, the Associate Principal, the idiotic counselor, and that psychotic police officer, after all that, this: a dead black cat. Blocking her path! Right in the middle of the street! …

Having Read the Poems of Matt Dennison

18251825 views77 comments33 favs

Having read the poetry of Dennison I hereby give up writing.

Some People

18251825 views1212 comments77 favs

But those burning red numbers persist in my mind and I can't rest 'till they're gone They always come back Like the cat in that childhood song.

To Know but not Really

18241824 views99 comments55 favs

So strange this feelingTo meet someone I've haven't really metTo know someone I don't actually knowTo desire to learn more but sure I never willTo feel connected not knowing what I'm connected toTo read words, thoughts, feel moved by them, but never hear a voice

The Celebrity

18241824 views22 comments00 favs

I love reading about myself. There's nothing more gratifying than seeing my name in the paper, knowing so many people are interested in who I am and what I do.

Writing Coach Helps Blocked Women Tap Inner Meanness

18241824 views88 comments77 favs

“Susan,” he says menacingly, as if he’s a husband who’s caught a cheating wife in a discreet liaison with another man. “I thought I made myself clear about this sort of thing.”

Baking Bread

18241824 views22 comments11 fav

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

Collision

18241824 views33 comments22 favs

That black hole isn't really a hole.

A Handsome Boy Spends a Wednesday

18241824 views11 comment22 favs

It distresses me that you will never lust after me / the way you did for that girl / who had her hands around your belt

MY WAR

18241824 views1111 comments33 favs

In May of 1982, my daughter and I planned a trip…

Maritzer's Axiom

18241824 views88 comments66 favs

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

The Hound

18241824 views00 comments00 favs

I would be the mortal to hand justice to God. It wouldn’t come in the form of steel from a blade or by gun powder of a revolver, but by my disbelief...

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

18241824 views11 comment11 fav

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!"

Sing Sorrow Sorrow

18231823 views00 comments00 favs

Lean closer, she smiles, smell my perfume let yourself be taken to a wild forest where owls grow and trees fly.

Clockwork

18231823 views44 comments44 favs

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.

The Signal

18231823 views44 comments33 favs

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)

18231823 views11 comment11 fav

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

Verboten

18231823 views77 comments11 fav

Scales were installed on station platforms. Those who were overweight were turned away

Kingdom of the blind

18231823 views66 comments66 favs

Learned & wealthy but slowly going mad from seeing, he did the only thing he could/he turned to love

Residual Flashbacks

18221822 views77 comments66 favs

Residual flashbacks; just tiny bright lightning bolts that flash in front of my eyes, just like standing watching a soaring bonfire on a cold and frosty November night, pinprick sparks flying up into the endless darkness of the night.

Paris in the the Spring

18221822 views1616 comments1111 favs

he thought of her / longingly

Searching for a poem

18221822 views55 comments55 favs

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