Most read stories

Party w/Your Parents' Siblings

16021602 views11 comment11 fav

Her mother sighed, fingering the faux-pearls around her neck. Barbara's neck tensed, almost as though the hair on the back of it would stand up: Here comes a platitude . . .

Measures

16021602 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.”

Independence Day

16021602 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.

Keep Your Man Crazy in Love the Redbook Way

16021602 views00 comments00 favs

You are like gasoline on the fire of my desire–you send me higher and higher into paroxysms of earth-shaking erotic explosions. Remember–the “light” catfood is the kind in the turquoise bag.

Victoria Gate

16011601 views44 comments22 favs

Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament.Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer…

Suicide - The Failsafe

16011601 views55 comments22 favs

Yesterday morning I sank to the depths of hell and barely crawled out in time. There is no answer except possibly death that will find me relief from his distant presence. I am free but yet I am not and I slowly sink into a hollow world where nothing hurt

Notes from Matrimony, # 9

16011601 views44 comments44 favs

I arrived Sunday evening to a darkened house. Everything unplugged. Even the fuses from the breaker. Meticulous, this undoing. Silence has a sound. Cold has a voice, a pearly cigarette whisper. It says, “Metaphor?”

Robert, The Architect

16011601 views44 comments22 favs

Robert Townsend had planned his suicide for ten years, and on July 10th, 2010 he took a long, hot shower to set the mood.

You Can Wear Skinny Jeans

16011601 views44 comments44 favs

He looks at me again, this time glancing down at my skinny jeans, “And... are you a single mom?” he seems to think he has it right, taking a last look at my aquamarine colored pants and the tapered area around my calves.

just…

16011601 views11 comment00 favs

wash over me i fear not the erosion let the future scientists take their soul samples to figure out what happened how was there warning and when you go away let me believe the residue left behind is a choice a souvenir of the moment i want you full…

Five Bones

16011601 views99 comments88 favs

When the storm broke, my late aunt's dog fetched five favourite bones from his corner, and arranged a crude protective circle.

Gemini

16011601 views99 comments44 favs

Not many people like Geminis.

Reverse Order

16011601 views55 comments22 favs

Robert wants so badly after reading a book where a man wakes up as a bug to wake up as a bug. He researches the avenues of metamorphosis where science has been where it is going. He is disappointed that of all things science has turned into other things, none…

Song of Another Country

16011601 views66 comments44 favs

And she warms her hands on fresh-cut gizzards, And he forgets the taste of honeyed peaches

Run For Your Life

16011601 views00 comments00 favs

It was where the “Suits” worked. I didn’t want to go there, I didn’t want to be there, but in those days one did what one was supposed to do.

The After-Sex Song

16011601 views99 comments77 favs

You could hear her coming from a long way off as she kept trying to catch her breath, like she was getting the fun rattled out of her bones. But it was laughter, laughter that kept on filling up her belly from the inside, and she was having tr

Gold Digger

16011601 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.

Vienna

16001600 views22 comments22 favs

I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year, as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.

der Morgenmuffel

16001600 views55 comments11 fav

I sat on the corner of her desk ... Angela Merkel can be a sweetie when she wants to be.

Our Names Are Written In Water

16001600 views66 comments00 favs

Passing us in a delicate swirl of light perfume and healthy girl sweat, three bare midriff elfin, baby dykes with pencil thin eyebrows, and chic art hair cuts, swaggered in like cool young gunfighters straight off the cover of Bad Baby Butch Vogue

Flight Path

16001600 views66 comments55 favs

Those who love aluminum bellies and landing gear and ailerons... that ilk... settled at the western edge of of LAX 24R 6L and called the encampment Flight Path.

Fidelity

16001600 views55 comments44 favs

The night before leaving, we have French toast and red wine in Matthew's kitchen, our packs and sleeping bags and tents surrounding us, looming like golems. Because we're nervous, and a little drunk, the conversation inevitably turns to grammar. "I'm sure I learned…

Will Write For Crab Cakes

16001600 views11 comment11 fav

By: Roz Warren (and Janet Golden)I'm a humor writer. My work appears in publications from The Funny Times to The New York Times. Janet is a history professor whose writing was confined to academic journals and the occasional op-ed. Driving back from the Jersey shore one…

Listening Room Night

16001600 views77 comments33 favs

The surroundings, he thought, are just as important as what's surrounded.

The Grave of Rimbaud

16001600 views1414 comments1111 favs

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

Boxes

16001600 views2323 comments1515 favs

I am long of tooth, too, and when I go, maybe a box with my ashes inside will join the boxes containing the cats’ remains.

Christmas

15991599 views1010 comments66 favs

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.

3 short poems (2)

15991599 views77 comments66 favs

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.

Bukowski

15991599 views1515 comments1010 favs

that guy/ MOSTLY understood / endings

Librarians Love Me!

15991599 views22 comments11 fav

Librarians love me, you want to know why? I don’t dog-ear pages, I don’t even try.