Most read stories

What the Bay Broke

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This summer they had reached their fifth anniversary, the landmark they’d dubbed the Bacchanal year. Instead of exchanging gifts made of wood, they’d bought expensive wines and champagnes and emancipated their bodies of clothing for two straight days. The

Read Me

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I won’t be eating much anyway if someone doesn’t start reading me. I’ve got to get a hook so people will be drawn to my work. I’ve got a few concepts I’d like to share with you. See what you think.

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.

Freddy in the Future

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

Puerility

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--So, why are you here?

Assiduity Four

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Her clothing style varies from grunge to glamor and . . . she always looks good.

A Small Life in Slices

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It’s Sunday- no need to shave-/ but shave, I do. A little act// of discipline in the discipline/ of routine.

lent (valentine's day challenge )

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the names / she carried (within)

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

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…

Penny cosmogony

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

Life on TV

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The television volume softens in the shadows.

Black Hole Me

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my fingers vibrate magnetic/ a humming void/ where my brain was

3 short poems (2)

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Clear as my conscience may be, you still haunt me as the brown settles to black sit there and recommence as if nothing had ever happened, your hands conducting the orchestra of your purity.

Wall-to-Wall Bullshit (or, 'The Unauthorized Autobiography of Smiley McGrouchpants Jr. Esq. III')

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"I can't believe my 'best friend' and my 'girlfriend' would actually start dating if I authorized and coordinated repeated threesomes for us!" Robert Eww was saying, holding aloft a dagger and book, with an olive wreath around his head.

Two Little Words

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

When Serpents Had Stairs

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Pombo had never exhibited such powers of concentration with elevators or with other escalators, the young girl confessed to the museum staff.

O'erleaping Ambition

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“Listen, Mother – you’re my ticket out of this burg and I’m not about to cash it in!”

"If I die again, just let me go"

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Will wondered if Doobie was afraid that it might be nothing but the abyss waiting on the other side, but he promised Doobie he’d let him pass on if it was finally his time.

Now or Never

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One by one our friends are kicking the bucket. Let's get together. It's now or never, we figure.

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.

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.

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

Burnab

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Lise started making up words when she lost her voice.

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.

Rowdy

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Flash’s hackles stood brushlike but he kept his head bowed just enough beneath the bigger dog’s stare to delay the inevitable fight. Flash, Mal thought approvingly, would pick the time and place.

Consuela, Your Love Chaperone

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he took me hostage as I came out the door. Nelson took me hostage and we went back to his parents' house. They were gone crappie fishing so I had to spend the whole weekend alone with him. I didn't have anything lined up for Saturday night, so it wasn'

Independence Day

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Not long ago, Owen the Second showed her a skull. He kept it in a brown cardboard box in the top of the closet. "My first wife," he said, and sneered, his lip bunching up around a scar just under his nose.

Memory Loss, or Shitty Stand Ins

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Do not listen to Christmas music out of season. Unless of course you want to ruin Christmas music. Forever.

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…