Most read stories

A Poet in a Coffeeshop in the Motherfucking Nineties

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Look at her. She doesn't want to be here. The kiss and “wouldn't miss it for the world” was as empty as her crossed arms, crossed legs, and jittery foot were loaded. She attacked the foam of her latte with a tiny red straw. I wanted to scream. Complain about the…

Flannery O'Connor's Tea Party

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“He's the one who took five tries to find your vein during your last blood draw, right?” This question spilled from the row of twenty EKG machines that now made up the hospital building's larynx

Woman On A Bicycle

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And the ocean was black and green and blue—as your dress that clung to your body’s curve. Round as the bend of the water trailing the false line of the shore.

The Work of Beauty

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the steady, persistent work of beauty

Books

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It sometimes happens a student remains a friend long after you both have abandon academe.

Everyone Else's Business

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"We all knew that the thirty-eight year old mother, with the house on the hill, was having an affair with Darren, a fifteen year old boy, but no one did anything about it. When he was sixteen the parents found out and were furious, but the police were ne

Victoria Gate

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Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament.Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer…

Take the 40 Million Years Without Sex Challenge!

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Scientists have determined that a tiny freshwater organism known as the "bdelloid rotifer" gave up sex 40 million years ago. And you thought the spark had gone out of your marriage.

Once There Was A Man

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And there sat one man. Searching for words and solace. The silence returned and the colors peeled off from the walls. Darkness returned with fledgling light. He threw back his head and filled the emptiness with his laugh. He laughed in mirth and in misery

Land of Our Fathers

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He called me one Friday when I was a kid and told me he wanted to go trout fishing. He had dreamt that I was a worm or a fly -- he couldn't remember which -- but he was sure I would bring good luck to the stream. The next morning, before grandma awoke, I

Biography of a Splotch in a Parking Lot

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She hadn’t died. She wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t even invisible. She just wasn’t see-able.

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.

Mercury Unbound - 8

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The border crossing at El Paso will soon be arriving. I'm apprehensive about Mexico, all the violence.

Late Night Learning

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A wrinkled man lie atop an ivory-clad mattress, matched sheets covered his body, matched hair covered his head.

Morning

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On the television, a round woman sits amongst the mannequins. She wears a headband. She describes some awesome jewelry.

Sowers of Nothing (ELECTRIC DELIRIUM 1.2)

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We dig up conscience-tunnels, pluck the play-flower of present choice for fun, run aground, past this dimly lit, though not to be underestimated, stage, and open door upon empty door, to nothing, for the lights are a pulse flickering in the perceptual per

Assiduity Twenty Two

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Warning: reader beware, there's sex in the air.

Water

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The water rolls gently this evening, barely touching my toes before retreating. The tide has been going out for over an hour and already there are several victims – crustaceans, spider crabs, minnows.

Cinnamon Doughnuts and a Neenish Tart

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Mr Robertson chuckled gently as he caught the aroma of freshly cooked cinnamon doughnuts and watched the oil leave its fingerprints.

Raw Meat

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I took Annie to the zoo, and the tigers got out. The little tigers, that is. Cubs. Two of them. The zoo employees scurried about, peeking into nooks and crannies.

The Clairvoyant Dwarf, The Jester, and the Tame Elk of Prague

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All were part of the household of Court Astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) who lost his nose in a duel as a student and went through life thereafter wearing a gold prosthetic one instead and who met and fell in love with a commoner who bore him eigh

Absence

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Her mouth was sour; her forehead was still damp with perspiration. She leaned against the bathroom wall and noted her complexion had gone pale. She wanted to slide down the wall and rest until she felt steadier, but…

Considering a Career

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Mostly, though, reiteration of the old/ in an idiosyncrasy that strives/ to become fresh and fails

12 Dreams

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That dog again; enduring love.

Receding Haiku

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love weaves a perforated web between the spikes of longing

March

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Crows etc.

Every time we kiss, my hair falls out

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I’m in high leather boots; I’m talking many dead cows here and I respect that

Not If, But When

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She tells me I have to face the fact that I have the heart of the Tin Man. I know the story. He had none. She is very sensitive and I have to measure my remarks because words bruise her so easily. So, I…

Marriage

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A cult is one thing; it defies common sense that a commonly educated person cannot escape cultist thinking and belonging. That cult, A.A., is girded by police, fire, therapy, hospitals, insurance companies, and courts.

snatch 4

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...fingers...