Most read stories

Flood

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My mother's afraid the dog will drown. It's raining and our street is flooding and the dog is standing on top of his doghouse. My mother is pregnant. I can stand beneath her stomach and not even see her face. I watch her from the kitchen window. She's shoeless. She holds…

Morning

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

The Underwater Afterlife of Memory

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My fingers are shining in the underwater afterlife of memory searching for the nipple-sized mollusks searching for the solid nature of things left over from having lived a life at all That new rain smell, specifically I remember that,

Hip Hop

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Kenya Williams, eight years old, was out of bed before anyone else in her family, even Grandpa. It was Easter Sunday. She had a mission of mercy to carry out. She dressed quietly and tiptoed past her mama’s bedroom. She dared not wake her new daddy, who w

Blind

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My mother saw the Devil everywhere, even in my dance teacher, with his black leotards and chest hair like bean sprouts. "You're flamingos," he'd say in class when we balanced on one foot; when we lept into the air, "Now you're panthers!" I pictured him in a dark robe,…

Why I like My Watches Analog

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watch/ the second hand sweep

The Last Campfire

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The bearded old man, raised his weary body from the bedroll he had slept on last night and slowly stood up. Bones creaked as he worked the stiffness out of his joints, the pain and memory of endless days and nights riding the…

Oh, Little Bird, You Send Me

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Who are all these rough looking people, hanging over me, itching me with their shaggy, grapevine arms? Like twisting, dangling down, painted, cloth Gargoyles on a quickly coming apart, dried up rope? It's always been the same old perch to view from. You wanted to know…

Old Haunts

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“Why do you write filth?” they howl

Metro Retrofitting

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Fax me back to South Street listening to the dumpster / trumpeter, standing like licorice in the rain, / as the fetid officers assemble for the raid

I Would Make the Worst Cable News Anchorwoman Ever

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I'd laugh, cry, splutter with confusion or outrage. I'd probably say “Duh” a lot, grow pale, flush, and wink at the viewers. I'd furrow my eyebrows, raise one or both, and my eyes would narrow, widen,…

Freddy in the Future

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“Me try anything,” he says, then laughs a little. “You’re fucked.”

Today: Journal, July 21, 2007

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Sex is a sad reason to be alone with someone.

Gogol vs. Quixote

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“We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'," said Dostoevsky. Well, sometimes, I think otherwise.

Win Some, Lose Some

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Afterward, at the motel, I asked her why she liked sex so much, and she said she liked the taste.

Talk To the Bionic Hand

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Talk To the Bionic Hand “Scientists have discovered how to program intention into a bionic hand so that it will react to impulses from the brain like a normal hand” Man found being choked by his own out-of-control bionic hand after han

Don't Mangle the Mongol

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Back in the Dark Ages, the Mongols invented the first hamburger pattie. They put slabs of beef under their horses' saddles and after a few miles of rough riding -- voila! a flattened piece of cow meat. They then proceeded t

A Diminishing Verse on Diminishing Returns

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My banker said, "We've millions we can spare,

The Troupe

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A performance is a series of situations. Each situation defines the characters that are in it.

Roots

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My grandmother didn't like fireworks much. She said they reminded her of the raids during the war, when everybody stayed in the tube tunnels at night, going in buckets and curling up on the tracks.

Escape

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Can’t you do anything right?

gravelortian part 23

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Can't believe I was able to drive this far

Every Woman Adores a Fascist

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We liked the orderly Newtonian/ with its fundamentalist action/ and reaction, its rules

Cow

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“He looks funny again,” the twins would say. “Cow looks funny, Mummy.”

Christmas

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My first girlfriend had blue Christmas lights strung on trees in front of her stone house. My family had all gone to bed. When midnight came, it was snowing.

Two Little Words

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I'll never be a Republican Megadonor or a Doomed Aviatrix. But I'm okay with that.

Failed Restaurants

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Their specialty is the roasted Australian hare, long ears intact, arranged on a bed of sassafras.

Dessert Buffet

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“Your husband is an asshole, isn’t he?” he asks.

Ages One Through Ten

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Age Eight: Custody battle. Reassure your worried mother that it’s alright, this will give you something interesting to tell your children one day. Until now, life has been very vanilla.

To Do List

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Throw them up there but try to make it look tidy. Try to become a little bit paranoid, just enough that you slightly overestimate how much they think of you at all.