Most read stories

To Build a Fire

17541754 views99 comments66 favs

One frozen hand protruded from the snow.

That's all, folks...

17541754 views77 comments66 favs

I’m supposed to be writing poems but it’s Saturday morning and I’m watching cartoons.

The Secret

17541754 views66 comments66 favs

It was always your body that told so much -- lips working some secret out

Cat Tales - a 55 word story

17541754 views1111 comments44 favs

My spooky cat got out again. Under the deck she ran. Out came the hose that chased her about. Fur spiked, tail pointing, yowling, she hissed at me, and back in the house she pranced. It's been two days now. She slithers out for food after…

Gertrude

17541754 views55 comments44 favs

When we were young and small we played in the orchard. Mom made apple pies and fried apples, caramel apples and apple sauce, apple cider. Grandma’s apple butter recipe.

Micro Trilogy

17541754 views66 comments77 favs

I start with a morsel of truth, then hide it with lies...

Frances at Virginia Beach

17531753 views22 comments33 favs

My husband waits for him to hurt himself. The boy drinks red wine between movements, Staring hypnotically at the back Of a girl’s head.

Everyone Else's Business

17531753 views77 comments66 favs

"We all knew that the thirty-eight year old mother, with the house on the hill, was having an affair with Darren, a fifteen year old boy, but no one did anything about it. When he was sixteen the parents found out and were furious, but the police were ne

One of Us

17531753 views00 comments00 favs

“We’re starting to get into weather control,” Mark said. “Can you really do that?” Rachel asked, trying to sound supportive and not skeptical. “There are people out on the west coast in Seattle, who’ve been experimenting with it,” Mark said. “Bec

Bukowski

17531753 views1515 comments1010 favs

that guy/ MOSTLY understood / endings

When the Well Runs Dry

17531753 views77 comments44 favs

and the moon shines on like a silver dollar and coyotes in the desert scream and holler

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

17531753 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

A Small Life in Slices

17531753 views1818 comments1010 favs

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

empty

17531753 views2020 comments99 favs

feeling empty as the bottom of a bottle dry as a bone in death valley alone

The Seer

17531753 views88 comments55 favs

The strange bones of language wander the room.

TWO STEPS

17521752 views55 comments44 favs

It turns out I know a thing or two about momentum. I know, I know. Like the crescendo of your bicycle wheels. Like the force the florist put on the stems the day Linda died. The way my fingers spin between planetary mass. This is how I know I’m not real

Texas Weather

17521752 views1919 comments99 favs

I know this: the sky is vast here// and the sun unforgiving/ to any architecture not the best

Blind

17521752 views55 comments44 favs

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,…

Elixir

17521752 views00 comments00 favs

Crimson dawn cloaks the starlit night,devoured flesh canvassed fright.Memories flash,as moment’s lapse.Feelings trapped,my love gasped.

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

17521752 views55 comments55 favs

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

Robert, The Architect

17521752 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.

Crescent City, Spring '97

17521752 views22 comments00 favs

It takes almost an hour before I drift to sleep on the bus. When I wake up in Crescent City, I’m surprised. Maybe I was going somewhere else in my sleep. Walking out of the station, it feels like a strange place. Somewhere I’ve never been before. The

blanck (1?)

17521752 views22 comments33 favs

① / empty space / not black / not white / not noise / blanck

In Small Packages

17521752 views22 comments11 fav

Linus had it right with the security blanket he held like a beloved pet swan. Geneva had it all wrong with a pastel-colored music box, painted with impressionist-styled daisies and tied up in gold-ribbed pink bow. But it had come from her grandmother. Her

The Judas Horse

17521752 views66 comments22 favs

Mark dressed the velvet red Stetson, too big for his head, like a dandy. A six year old savior with fringe on his pockets flapping as he, the ‘Judas horse’ led me ’round back

The Animal Cracker Incident (Part 2)

17521752 views00 comments00 favs

“I feel like my bones are melting.” Her arms are wrapped around her body tightly, like she’s trying to hold herself together. She’s shaking; I can hear it with every breath she takes.

Bones of the Amazon, Part I of a Novella

17521752 views00 comments00 favs

Lulu Petite was sitting in a lounge chair by the side of the pool when she heard the man splash into the water, almost unnoticed by the guests milling around the backyard of the palatial estate. Everybody, seemingly, was involved in a balancing act of one

Nothing to laugh at, at all.

17511751 views88 comments44 favs

The house had to be clean - I mean thorough-clean - when he got home from the pit for his tea, or he’d throw his plate at the wall and the gravy would run down onto the carpet. There was always gravy.

LATE NIGHT WITH MANDELBROT

17511751 views44 comments55 favs

On Soapography, two actresses are discussing everyone’s personal heaven, and in another room you can hear a woman who is your dead mother combing her hair in a doctor’s smock in a dream,

bird

17511751 views1212 comments1212 favs

Your mother is a great and dying bird. Once, she tended her grand feathered nest. Once, she preened.