Most read stories

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.

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.

Freddy in the Future

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

Assiduity Four

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

An association game with the word 'guilt' (or how (not) to die inside)

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The past operates with incredible gravity. Powerful, efficient, deceptive. Thin, sleek cords sent out by it attach themselves to your back, your legs, your buttocks, the back of your head. Resist. Walk. One leg after another. Easy does it, like a baby. Do

Superlative Land

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You are walking through a canyon made of shelving units lined with colorful masterpieces of three-dimensional minimalist design

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.

Devoured Worship

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This wasn't going to be about her anymore.She tied her strong purple balloon to the neck of the wounded horse. Her skirt and her top felt like armor's breath. The tingle across her scalp felt warm. Small rug scrapes that made her think of her last dog, before she died.This…

Waiting for the Voice on the Line

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hoping for a happy outcome/ like a kindly voice on the line

Penny cosmogony

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

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…

Gold Digger

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Sophie hoped that Ryan would just stay in the bathroom and never come out. Her stomach turned just thinking about him, but wealthy nerds were easier to work than wealthy regular guys. No self-esteem, no experience with women…no problem.

Looking for Eight

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She knew there were a few rodeos in south Texas scheduled in the next two weeks. Mostly small-time stuff, but riders who hadn't had much luck might be inclined to improve their scores for the pro circuit. She guessed Lorenzo wasn't having much luck.

Night and the spell that gave me peace

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When you have lived with pain so long, you grow old and the old man inside of you takes over. That’s just the way it is.

Nausea

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It’s been a series of bad clams

A DEBT

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A rose and two dollars. Where did they come from? I didn't know anyone who had visited my parents' grave recently, yet that evening I saw a white rose on my mother's side and two bucks on my father's. I took the money and placed my own flowers with the rose. It had to have…

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

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.

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…

Black Bombers

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The missions never change:/ To plant a bed of fast-blooming/ Flowers of annihilation/ Across an unspecific plain.

Regarding Viet Nam

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At some point, my lottery number/ was in the mid 300s. I was safe/ for whatever reason. No need/ to burn my draft card.

The Threshold of Unfinished Business

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Uh oh, the dry cleaning ticket

Moments in the Community of Women

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It’s the small stuff. Always. A conversation with a stranger, brief yet so connected it overwhelms you. These encounters can move me beyond my reality, little reminders that, if you just crack the window a little, something very special can blow in.

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!”

Rwanda Suite: The Congo in Me

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I scratch a red welt onto the inside of my white knee. The knee itches like crazy. Pain too, down to my bones. The Congo calls.

Moon Over the Downs - excerpt

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Each drip off the corrugated plastic sheeting made a tinny sound that he could hear from deep within the damp sleeping bag and layers of blankets where he was trying to sleep.

Undercover With the Weird Religious Divorce Rules Unit

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An undercover agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman in a sting operation that led to the arrest of two rabbis for kidnapping men who refused to grant divorces to their wives.

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.