Most read stories

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

16911691 views55 comments22 favs

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

Paying for Dinner at a French Restaurant So You Will Love Me

16911691 views55 comments55 favs

What does she have / that I don’t have / that I can’t buy / for myself?

Little Women

16911691 views1414 comments1515 favs

The place is buzzing with little women, all clad in black smocks.

Superlative Land

16911691 views33 comments22 favs

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

Ages One Through Ten

16911691 views66 comments66 favs

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.

Measures

16911691 views1010 comments66 favs

Blending in at a rock concert in ballet flats was harder than I thought it would be. The heavy eye makeup and lit cigarette I never brought to my lips put me somewhere between “Trying Too Hard” and “Bless Her Heart.”

Devoured Worship

16911691 views66 comments22 favs

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

16911691 views1818 comments1111 favs

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

The Troupe

16911691 views77 comments55 favs

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

Memory Loss, or Shitty Stand Ins

16911691 views00 comments00 favs

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

Off the Map

16911691 views11 comment00 favs

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…

Looking for Eight

16901690 views22 comments22 favs

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

16901690 views00 comments00 favs

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

16901690 views1313 comments1111 favs

It’s been a series of bad clams

A DEBT

16901690 views11 comment11 fav

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 )

16901690 views66 comments55 favs

the names / she carried (within)

The Fereigner

16901690 views77 comments66 favs

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

16901690 views00 comments00 favs

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

16901690 views99 comments33 favs

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

16901690 views1111 comments77 favs

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

Black Bombers

16901690 views2323 comments1111 favs

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

Regarding Viet Nam

16901690 views2727 comments1414 favs

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

Gold Digger

16901690 views11 comment00 favs

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.

Moments in the Community of Women

16891689 views11 comment00 favs

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

16891689 views33 comments00 favs

“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

16891689 views88 comments88 favs

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

16891689 views44 comments11 fav

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

16891689 views22 comments11 fav

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

16891689 views1818 comments1010 favs

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

The Yellow Room

16891689 views66 comments44 favs

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