Most read stories

Saturday Housekeeping

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but I pretend again I've kept the prairie/ out, have battled back the smoke and dirt

In A-B-C Order

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When she was nineteen, she began to brew a baby in her belly. She named it, and sang to it, and organized the leftover hand-me-downs that hadn't been worn ragged through by the first seven sets of recipients.

Zombie Night

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The man and the lady loved to laugh. She would tuck her hair back and lay her head on his stomach after dinner while watching old scary movies on Thursday nights. She would listen to his stomach digest the food and laugh then, he would laugh and…

Old clothes, bread, cream and butter.

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‘Just get out of bed,’ I reply. ‘It looks like the fairies have been at your head. You should turn your clothes inside out. Put out a biscuit. Ring a bell. Buy a rooster; or a recording of it crowing. It will keep the sprites at bay.

Based on Origins (Mother Tongue)

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I almost forgot. Her nipples taste like that syrup from a can of peaches. The kind you aren’t supposed to eat if you are 18 or older. The kind that adds baggage to the hips and I’m certainly not about to take out an insurance policy on my ass.

I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien

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You can’t start living in The Netherlands just like that; you need to be registered first. Once an official has confirmed you’re the person you claim to be, you can start in a job. Once an employer has confirmed you’re employed, you can apply for yo

The Tapeworm of Selfish Mammon Eats All the Good Will in the World

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She caretakes, he takes care

entwined

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you and i exist outside of the chaos and noise entwined in eternal embrace

Life Experience

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Karen likes to make a big deal about life experience. Specifically how much more she has than me. What that actually means, she's never made clear. The definition changes and mutates as the years go by, always in her…

Procedural

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Val walks through the world, absorbed in the day to day. A plainspoken narrator drones on in his mind. The nondescript voice marks time to the beat of Val's banal footfall, hums along with the whir of Val's modest, midsize sedan. The narration is loudest in the twilight…

Where is Love?

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I didn’t always have this metal thing poking out of the top of my head. I used to be a self-respecting farm animal amongst a barnyard of toys, but then the kids grew up.

Submission guidelines

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Somewhere in her the name triggers/ a grainy chain of Cheech & Chong

King of Pain

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I woke up around 6 pm today. As always, mum would wake me up. I have this special bond with my bed and parting with her during my most vulnerable is anathema to my nature. Thrice mum would pull my feet and thrice I would groan hoping she would go…

Charlotte and the Avalanche of Hope

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”My goodness how that child nurses hope,” Edward’s Grandad would often say, “were it not for her where indeed would this family be?”

Captains of Industry

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Renee said, "I have actually slept with a number of Captains of Industry and would rate them, overall, deficient in skills."

When a Bastard Stares at the Sun

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The sun is going to slice your goddamn face open.

Amelia

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Every time she tries to sleep they come; legions of small armored things scuttle claws aloft across the purple sand as soon as she stops moving.

A Body Divided, 3

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A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

The Meaning of Life

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One must not confuse the meaning / of life with the joy of living

The Virgin of Last Resort

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In a little dirt church at the end of the world stands the ikon of an unrecognized saint.

Lovelies on the Beach

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He doesn’t intend to lie after this. For now, he just wants to take in the sea and the quiet.

Waiting

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She saw no sense in waiting. Waiting was a weakness.

Haiku For My Old Neighbour

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Old man lives next door

The Blonde Bombshell

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We lived across, the street, across North Govenor, from a pretty art student whose stripper name was Jan the Blonde Bombshell.

Ascension

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He reveled in the chase, giddy when just out of arm’s reach. When to catch him, that was the question.

Stroller Mania

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Get something cheap and light at Target. Trash hell out of it. Encourage baby to urp up in it.

Salt

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I imagined the crystals in my mouth. Salt flowers blooming on my tongue.

Colors

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Frowning, loosening a purple tie, Tony pushed through the golden revolving doors of a skyscraper. He drifted into the crowded midtown street as if in a daze. He was roused to his senses as his cell phone sent out the melody of his wedding song.

Billionaire* Consternation - a play in three acts

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Is it you with that fucking gold and platinum yacht?!?

You Say Sorry Just For Show

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The last of your tenuous septum dissolves when you press the nozzle of the neti pot against it.