Most read stories

Black Orchids

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I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.

Guns in the House

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Jack would have felt betrayed, and my parents alarmed, had they ever suspected me of playing with Jack's guns, but I found the temptation overwhelming.

When I Asked You to Sing at My Funeral

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It's because poetry would not do because the fireflies were alive that night, aflame

Refuge

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cotton balls in your ears do not deafen you to the rocking of your mother's bed...as she and the new uncle set forth on the turbulent sea of their maiden voyage.

Happy Valentine's Day From Your Librarian

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Is every librarian a poet at heart? I don't know, but a group of librarians recently put their heads together and came up with these library-themed Valentine's Day poems: Roses are red Your book's overdue You've had it for months Which is…

The Red Suitcase: Part 1

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He had become an accessory to a murder.

Elusive Ideas in a Pineapple Under the Sea

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I cannot find my way back to the bubbling navel of the universe because of Spongebob Squarepants.

A Black Cat

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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! …

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 10

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O’Toole signaled again with two fingers. The night was young. Suddenly I had to go home to my lovely Penny. All I knew was I didn’t want to end up drinking at a hole like this with my head down on the bar.

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.

The Nightly Dance

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The electricity animates my body into myclonic dance. I do not rest. I dance with the demons; I dance with Nijinsky rage. I dance with the fury of Saint Vitus and his wooden cross. My shoes are fashioned with my own fear, tanned and stretched over my feet

A Safe Place

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I think of our first morning in front of the mirror and the hairbrush that we shared—the hairs in it brown from you, blonde from me. I miss this day and when I cannot sleep, I watch your window from my room until your light goes out. Sometimes, I can se

Vivian

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When her husband left she was not yet thirty

Somnambulist

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Although still uncertain of whether she was a she fish or a he fish (she definitely hated being an it fish), the fish liked what she saw of Nags Head. Finally, a world that gave her a choice. And felt no need to verify whether she was a real she fish, or just a he fish…

Molly was a F***ing Tourist

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The boys drank in one room. The girls in another. Always the same, no matter the letters. Greek Letters. Shabby sofa on the burnt-out lawn.

Space, Blank, Uninterrupted

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Space, blank, uninterrupted, but then a fissure, a crack, a corridor, and down it you're walking.

Ten Little Indians

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One day we went for a hike. We climbed a small mountain. It’s called Mission Peak. We got about halfway up a steep trail, decided that was far enough. We embraced. She said “I love you,” and I said, “I love you, too.”

Ackermann

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When he took Medieval German Lit in graduate school, Ackermann read Der Ackermann aus Böhmen by Johannes von Tepl. His professor was amused both by his last name and that his grandparents were Germans from Bohemia. Of course, only his grandmother was from Bohemia and…

Noodles

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It's Granny hauling her crooked soul into heaven. Guess who I stole that image from?

Miss Havisham's Fire

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. . . catching her breath somewhere between ecstasy and surprise. . .

Beowulf Is Pillow

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Now that school is back in session, we move through our days like cage fighters, tagging in and out of matches: The Battle of the Bottle, The Diaper Duel, The Pout Bout. So while I'm assembling a casserole for tomorrow, Susan feeds Margot. While she washe

the ethics of graffiti

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Panorama

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Ben tossed the newspaper aside, muttering. Carol, curled up on the sofa, peered past the glasses at the tip of her nose and past the crossword puzzle. "What?" "The Brits wanted to fight rather than be taken hostage. They had an escort boat ridin

The Heart

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My wife and I were looking for a "fixer-upper." We were strange that way. We were leaving a rental which had cat tunnels built into the walls. One villa we toured had a heartbeat. In the basement, in place of a well pump, was a heart made of fibrous roots which had…

Self Help For Daydreamers

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I think I’ll get a tattoo. Not just any tattoo, one I’ll regret. I’ll catch people peering at it, trying to interpret the twists and swirls of the black ink on my fair skin.

Blip

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‘They will follow, but we have to go now’ ‘Wait , I can see something familiar...’

Understudy

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All young and loud and big and I swear her face like a lighthouse lamp, glowing—I remember thinking, ‘She’s drunk at nine in the morning.’

Twin Lakes of Whiskey

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not that we ever had before

A Tale Of Three Titties

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"Someone should have told her that less is more..."

El Desdichado by Nerval

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Give me back my / singularity, my tristesse, my photo ID.