Most read stories

Black Eyes, Blue Tears, and Dark Thoughts

17531753 views33 comments11 fav

At five a family relative took my life away from me and no one cared

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

empty

17531753 views2020 comments99 favs

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

Reproductive Disneyland

17531753 views22 comments11 fav

Justin comes out of the bathroom, finally erect, his hands glistening with K-Y jelly as he chucks the girlie mag into a corner. “I'm ready.” Through the afternoon's soft-filtered light, Kelly watches him climb on top of her and thinks of…

Curry

17531753 views1212 comments66 favs

I looked around in my pantry but there were no sentences I felt like cooking.

The Seer

17531753 views88 comments55 favs

The strange bones of language wander the room.

a nice girl is like powder

17531753 views33 comments33 favs

I remember mad strong words out of a teenager, fresh from the shower without a blouse: First! He will be my age, period! He will be the first to walk me to my room as my fear crashes to earth, final, considered. And I will be the first to milk the w

Micro Trilogy

17531753 views66 comments77 favs

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

Cell Phone

17521752 views99 comments66 favs

Hey, how are you? she squeaked.

A Small Life in Slices

17521752 views1818 comments1010 favs

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

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?

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

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

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

Undercover With the Weird Religious Divorce Rules Unit

17511751 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.

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.

Concubine on the Ginza Line

17511751 views11 comment11 fav

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

Rowdy

17511751 views55 comments00 favs

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.

My dark job history

17511751 views55 comments33 favs

Sometime in the late 60s when I was thirteen I had this paper route for the San Mateo Times.

Time Capsule

17511751 views66 comments66 favs

He pours another shot and says: Then I buried it in the yard. The time capsule I mean. You have to plug it in to see. I wonder if they’ll know.

In Small Packages

17511751 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

Victor Krowchuck Gets Dressed

17511751 views44 comments33 favs

He puts on a choir of prepositions, 142 adjectives, 317 ramifications of cotton... and 177 semicolons engorged with cabbage.

Full

17511751 views33 comments22 favs

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.

The Animal Cracker Incident (Part 2)

17511751 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.

What the Bay Broke

17511751 views00 comments00 favs

This summer they had reached their fifth anniversary, the landmark they’d dubbed the Bacchanal year. Instead of exchanging gifts made of wood, they’d bought expensive wines and champagnes and emancipated their bodies of clothing for two straight days. The

TWO STEPS

17501750 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

Nothing to laugh at, at all.

17501750 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.