Most read stories

The Introduction

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Lucy looked up, smiled and said mine had a head that looked like a mushroom. I suppose she was right. We were sitting on the floor drawing naked bodies for our anatomy lesson and teasing each other about our lack of drawing talent. We were new friends, having met when…

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.

Light Eyes

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Once, when he had been married for a year, she sent him a card which said, "If you have seen a cat smoke a pipe, you have got it made." There was an illustration of a big, black panther, standing up on its hind legs, smoking what looked like a big tub of

Home Health Care

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But what if it grew into a nasty tea party-ish bimbo right winger -- a little Michelle Bachmann nubbin?

The Clarity of Loss

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This year I did not markthe day of your death.I let it slip by in an afternoonfilled with music you'll never hear,words you'll never read,a chorus of voices raised in protestat the unwavering passage of time.I don't need a numberto know that you are gone.Since you went…

Boy's Worst Friend

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After dinner, I looked forward to taking a shower and cleansing myself of the day’s mishap. Cher had other plans.As I left the bathroom, Cher nipped me in the butt, taking my towel, skin, and blood with her. I remember writhing on the floor outside my sis

Tangerine Slip Cat

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I knew my cat was capable of telepathy when I began to have isolated, random, non-cause-related thoughts about food and feelings, little signals, and I realized that the signs — images of tangerines, tuna, bones; the idea of choice; slate, names; the feeling of…

Ghosts

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...ghosts still resentful, ghosts far from home...

ATF

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A father's soft neglect has repercussions.

The Art of the Ruin

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The ghosts run before/ attacking horsemen. A heart/ is ruptured by a spear.

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."

Monolith

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She seems to be demanding someone donate to her a beard. No one has gone any further with this, and the electricity of her song about beards, listing, growing more undulant, crescendos.

Easter

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Marge didn't eat lamb or pork.

Good Fences

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I built the fence myself, strong and high and aesthetically pleasing. It was high enough to provide privacy on both sides, but from my bedroom balcony I could see everything. More than I wanted to see.

Into The Great Behind

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Harold’s a thinker, authors their plans. Last week he swiped six encrusted cans of Stroh’s from a faded cooler in his dad’s garage. He and LS guzzled each one in a chigger-weed patch behind the school gym, slurping and thumbing a stack of purloined

Game Day

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Being awake for the sunrise, that is the good planfor writing poemsand listening to enginesbirdsand bus stop silence.Now, I'm going to smokeout back on my roof porchfrom this atticapartmentin this desert land of big-titted blondesand listen to stadium fansrage…

You deserve to be choked around your lying throat and this how it happens, slowly.

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Writing as a form of imaginative hatred

I'm Drinking This Cup Of Coffee (A.K.A.) I've Never Smoked A Joint

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I thought about how chocolate or an hour massage, can almost trump sex. Then, I bought a chocolate bar and ate it all, without consulting the serving size. It was dark chocolate, 82%, worth it in the short term--- mmmm. I thought about getting stoned.

February 1964

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New York, New York The winter drizzle left the streets shiny like in movies and this night Manhattan looked like it should look, vibrant, clean and sparkling. It was…

Mount Baldy

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The most beautiful possible thing is to deprive all places of their meanings.

Salt

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

Vienna

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I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year, as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.

Call Me Naked

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[He] practiced aromatherapy and licentiousness, in no particular order.

Starry Night

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I invited Van Gogh over for some drinks and a chat. I'm talking about Vincent.

Five Being Ten at the New Afterlife Dance Theatre

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We got our holes in our hearts bundled onto soft wrapping cloth just like the gentleman on TV said; with smiles we set out towards our matching end of the same old stories. That's just the way…

And the Canon Rap Got Played

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Back in the sixties, I chanced upon a list of books. That’s right. Sifting a black garbage bin, I found the long lost canon. Seizing the moment, I snatched the list, and cradled it in my palms. I felt proud and patriotic for saving such a noble list f

When the Time Has Passed to Do Good

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Both his parents saved their pent up Puritan pasts to fill his ears with brimstone clichés. "Idle time is the devil's playground", he would tell me, scrunching up his face, stuffing it full of meat lovers pizza.

Conjugal Love

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Either they got married in the church dressed in their mothers’ bridal gowns, gaudy and ancient dresses with off-white lace faded from years of hanging in the attic, or they snuck down to city hall...

Bosch's Last Words

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I / go my / way alone

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…