Most read stories

Cow

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

Salt Water

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A horizon shrinks a burden until it’s a seagull getting fat off vinegar fries. I’m in love with the way your mouth moves when you aren’t talking. When it fills with salt.

The Yellow Room

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...the knives she laid out on the porch before her husband left her, washed and dried, set neatly by copper pennies.

Sonnet for a Unicorn

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My sweet baby angel has baby hair Baby angel has a golden cross lit looking at the crystal pig and kind mare The drowning unicorn comes from the waves in fits. My sweet baby angel has baby talkBaby angel has a diamond shape scarburied heart shaped…

Penny cosmogony

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On his knees he divinates diverging lines with belly laughs he levitates the rebel spheres into geodes .

HUNTING

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In the cool, damp morning, Jeremiah trembled, from the weight of the gun, from fear he would miss.

BABY MOUSE

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BABY MOUSE She and the baby squeeze into the neon blue star-studded rocket ship in front of K-Mart, a tight fit because the baby's still inside her and the ship is made for under ten year olds and the steering wheel dents her stomach and the baby backs up and…

In The Kitchen

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drips of blood vegetal

This Is Why I Write

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I do it for fun

Off the Map

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It's difficult to remember, much less write down, the hard times you thought were unforgettable when you have a full stomach. It's hard to remember that dirty little room you rented in that house, from a Bosnian landlord, on 27th avenue and Missouri. The…

Dr. Norm O. Pathy, M.D.

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He slumped forward, drooling into his lap.

Writer's Envy

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You may think you've tasted envy, but yours was just a sour sip of wine at a civilized wine-tasting. Mine is bottom-shelf, well-brand gin in a biker bar with miss-the-urinal piss stains on the floor.

Life Apart

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Practice has perfected disengagement.

Freddy in the Future

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

Zeus Takes a Day Job

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That's demeaning enough, but not as hard to take as the customers. They're all jaded hipsters, thumb diddling smartphone freaks, pretending their online interactions actually count as relationships and that “tweets” are real conversations. It's sad, reall

The Good Old Days

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What she didn't tell me was that her brother Carl got fried during an electrical storm.

The Shadow

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"Did I have a dream, or did the dream have me?" - Rush, "Nocturne"

Children's Time

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During what's called "Children's time," one day at church Sarah slides her left foot halfway out of her tiny ballet slipper to show Davie her toenails are painted the same soft pink as the inside of her shoe. "Look," she says. "My…

The Audition

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My music teacher, Luigi Biagi, told me that he was done with me. He said it was time I moved on to more specialized teachers. Since my passion was composing and arranging, he recommended Al Fine.

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.

Wax Off

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The time has come to scrape the wax from my menorah.

Sounding

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Grey would rather be in the trees or down by the river. When a wind comes up, he grabs the wooly blanket from the hook in the barn and calls Phoebe. They stretch the blanket out between them and sail into the grassy meadow that slopes down the hill from t

Truth

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…assume...

Black Eyes, Blue Tears, and Dark Thoughts

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At five a family relative took my life away from me and no one cared

You Know It!

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"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"

chicken little considers the sky again

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oh, sure i’m still running around like a heads-up/off/prophet/profit/fit trying to cut off my very own de/(con)instruction and all other sordid a•void•able & available/a-Babel towers of post &toastmodern doom/daze

Dog

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I’m not the creative type like my friend Bosely, an Irish Setter. I’m a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

They Come To Me At Night

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I have an appointment set for the day after next; you said you thought you might be firing blanks and then I feel a kick into my chest—two kicks, three, seven at least—my cat is going crazy at the stinky tom outside the window and the birds are waking, sc

B00bs

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They stride the earth of their own accord, knocking down bridges, buildings— obliterating whole towns with each pendulous swing...

The Fereigner

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So, I escaped from the Iron Curtain out of Czechoslovakia, as was called then. That was in 1956 I escaped, and came to Chicago where all of you were for some time already. I know our grandparents came over in early part of century, but my part of family