Most read stories

Landing

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She’s witnessed her mother’s terror on the day of the hurricane, and she demanded for the first time in her life that her mother do something her mother did not want to do.

Boxes

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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.

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.

Poems I Wish I Had Written

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Parsimony, Sage Advice, Alimony, and Time. That would be one. The Waste Land. The Hollow Men. The Red Wheelbarrow. There are others, But I have definite shoe anxiety dreams and can’t get over them. Do not Go Gently Into That Good Night. Alone

Nothing to laugh at, at all.

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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.

Out of Character

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Co-workers have started calling him Jesus, Manson, Foghat, Doobie Brother, hippie, hipster, Grizzly Adams, Dude Lebowski... there’s really no end to it.

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.

Air

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In the gutter, the paper signs turned back to pulp.

The Prize

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The fish would need a name, but she didn’t know how to tell if it was a boy or a girl. Did fish have penises?

Confederates

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I knew I spoke out of turn when I asked my father's old friend Charlie Jobe what he thought would come of moving to the veterans' camp, or "Village of the Deranged", as the newspaper has since taken to calling it. That was their description after all the

We call them the Removal Men

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They came early and parked up, under cover of the night and the giant oak. I only know this because people told me afterwards. Watching us, they were. It was six o'clock before they smashed their way in, scaring the three of us out of our wits. Baby Billy screamed the place…

Birdhouses

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That year, if you asked Al, was truly the best of times, the worst of times.

Concubine on the Ginza Line

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so I tighten hands with my castaway and say/you failed to impress in your folded peacock dress

Rowdy

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Flash’s hackles stood brushlike but he kept his head bowed just enough beneath the bigger dog’s stare to delay the inevitable fight. Flash, Mal thought approvingly, would pick the time and place.

The Missing Years

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Andrew smiled at her while he pulled out his penis. He then held it between his fingers and tugged at it, stretching it much like a rubber band

A Brief, Protracted Reflection

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...Loves and fights and retires; / And dies.

Black Bombers

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

Fertile Ground

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Miriam forced herself to focus on the kitchen door and on putting one foot in front of the other. “Is everything alright?” she heard Ada ask the family. “Of course, everything is fine,” the woman said. “What could be wrong other than the impossible serv

In The Kitchen

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drips of blood vegetal

Bones of the Amazon, Part I of a Novella

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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

the cold the day left

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in our teens as tough as the cold/we wore denim and flannel with our boots/kicking at whichever wind blew . . .

Words of Departure

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Not a fuss, not a stink, The eulogy, deep, will make one think, Grandmother, sat in back, will wink

blanck (1?)

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

Exchange Student

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Sometimes he could feel so small he believed he could fit through the eye of a needle.

Pretending Veracity, History Winks

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Mosaics are a trick of the eye, seeming

Full

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The trash is full. Again. I open the bathroom trash—because the diaper genie is stuffed—but there’s no room. I try the kitchen next. The lid swings open, catapulting carrot shavings onto the floor. I lay the diaper on the counter for later.

Howie Mandel

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We love the sparkling, speckless, spotless, spic-n-span, sanitary.

Godfrey part 2: Marjory's bag

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"when I say bag, what I mean to say is…"

Black Hole Me

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my fingers vibrate magnetic/ a humming void/ where my brain was

OUT

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All I wanted was to love her.