Most read stories

Anniversary Waltz

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He hiked the hills of her condition She biked the path of his delight

Little Women

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

Death

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fate is an illusion we use to ease the terror of our mortality

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 14

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I only knew that my heart was not in my life as I was presently living it. I needed the breasts of my Helen in my mouth forever, or I was going to die. Die! Ah, the life of a poet! I couldn’t go on living like this. Why should I go on living like this?

Home Health Care

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But what if it grew into a nasty tea party-ish bimbo right winger -- a little Michelle Bachmann nubbin?

How To Build A Drunken Sandwich

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Kick your employer in the ass. Emotions are strange experiments in honesty.

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…

The Letter

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I knew nothing about the letter at first. When I came in that morning and smiled and said good morning, it was a genuine smile and a heartfelt good morning. But the letter, which had arrived the previous afternoon, was already doing its corrosive work of

The Troupe

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

This is a Tender Ache

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Sit back n enjoy the show in a puffy puffed-up chair

Crooning

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It was a lover’s dark. They had been talking for hours when daylight lost interest and had gone elsewhere for sport.

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,…

Gogol vs. Quixote

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

Substitute

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He wiped it with a damp cloth. He set it in a glazed clay pot next to the sofa and admired its scrawny handsomeness.

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.

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…

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, lxiv - lxxii

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words have their own ancestors,/deeds are commanded by their own lords./ knowledge and thought do not make me understand—/no surprise, then, that I am not understood.

The Sugar

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55

To Build a Fire

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One frozen hand protruded from the snow.

The Grave of Rimbaud

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I visited the grave of Rimbaud. / It was pale blue

The Preservation of Innocence (through Times of Hunger and Doubt)

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Alicia got to third block early and scribbled down some of the derivatives homework. Others trickled in intermittently, drifting to their seats like impurities getting caught in a filter.

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…

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

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.

Wattle and Daub

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~ ! ~

Layover Memories

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It was a pleasant time, my thoughts were mostly good ones, with little effort wasted on regret.

Out the Window

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she lifted and threw her legs out the open side front window of the speeding auto

A Diminishing Verse on Diminishing Returns

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

Life on TV

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The television volume softens in the shadows.

Finder Girl

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We fold it end over end, meeting in the middle where she takes it, and I let go...