Most read stories

Reading Rilke Aloud in an Empty House

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I arranged all my books before you came, / so that it appears I read some more than others.

An Open Letter To My Vagina

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Dear Vagina,You are my oldest and dearest friend. We have been through so much together, haven't we? I remember the first day I really got to know you. It was about eighteen years ago. I thought I was dying, but it turns out I wasn't. …

All is Ready

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I have bathed in patchouli oil and my heavy hair is lustrous from brushing. I am wearing my gold ankle bracelets with the ruby charms that my love gave me when we had been married one year. My robe is fuchsia silk and under it I wear black satin…

The Color of Pebbles

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...her touch held such wisdom that it put babies to sleep...

In The Lake

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She says, “Put it there now.”

Agencypiece

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The gun sits quietly in the woman's handbag.

10 Easy Steps to a Better Intellectual Life

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Let’s face it, there are simply too many things too know these days.

Bone Dust Disco

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He stands at the 53 bus stop, boy shadow dust-cloaked and fading, jangling her keys in his pocket, echoes of a journey cut short.

There are Grandmas and there is my Grandma.

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Last night Grandma got her walker stuck in the snow almost up to her tits. I feel the mark of a dutiful grandson is to come to her aid. And I always do. Even though she usually gets back home at 2 00 a.m. — or maybe 3 — sometimes she's late and we worry but I…

Furniture Fights

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It amazes me that with everything this woman has to be depressed about, what really gets her down is an inadequate lounge chair.

O Fortuna

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This poem begins my poetry collection. It is about the pain and suffering I experienced when I had an attack of two pulmonary embolisms, one in the right lung, one in the left. This nearly killed me. I lived with the pain in my lungs whenever I took a bre

Leader of Men

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"Look," he said. "Look at the knife. See how I hold it?"

Quitting Smoking

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After the affair was over, she told her husband she’d been smoking. Obviously he didn’t know, but he knew. One can never hide the fact that one has been smoking. He said he could smell it on her.

Responses to a writing prompt on story structure, filled out moments after learning of my girlfriend's affair

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1. Main character: Promiscuous girlfriend. 2. Main character's goal: Wants to have a lot of sex. 3. Obstacle: Has boyfriend. 4. Character's idea of a solution to the goal: Cheats on boyfriend.

Estate

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In the kitchen they discovered the instruments. A flute under the sink tucked behind a rusted silver pipe. An oboe on the floor in the pantry. And a violin across the ice tray in the freezer, now dark. "Not ice," sister said, holding it up by the neck.

Some Last Things

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if you whisper your truths, they'll disappear

The Statue of a Writer

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As I sat down finally, finally to write, some brooding heretical hour of the night, with my ballpoint in hand, poised to blot page, Time gathered momentum, although I did not age...

The I Hate to Fuck Book

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This book is for those who have learned that sex is one of life's unpleasant experiences--like paying taxes, or renewing a driver's license--that does not become less painful through repetition.

Night has yet to break its fever

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Even the neighborhood houses show their sunburnt faces and symptoms of heat stroke in the glow of their night lights.

Throw

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She was a dead bird the morning I found her, wings clipped in dirt and blood vanished into tiny braille maps on concrete.

Superfoods

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It doesn’t get dark for hours but Sam doesn’t know that. Mum bought extra-thick blinds for his bedroom windows.

You Were At Your Best with Strings Attached

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You were like a delicate lace that barely mentions the wrist. But you were also at your best with strings attached. Let me say this. If innocence is supposed to be so overwhelming as to do nothing on purpose, not carried away by sensatio

The Ballad of the Summer Grains

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It is a day of swallows and grasshoppers, of white clouds and suntanned arms. In the yellow field wheat ears burn, lit by fantasies. One of wheat, one of rye. Summer love, holiday love is in the air. Under the thickness of the harvest, their roots search, call each other.…

Headstone

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On the ground deputies comb the back roads. Border Patrol scouts from the air

Blind-Sided, PT 1.

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BLIND-SIDED 1 The humid night air clung to Julio's skin as he and Marco stepped off the bus near campus, laughter trailing behind them like the smell of esquites from the street vendor across the road. The political rally had been noisy and full of energy - and…

Zero

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My round belly is deflating. I disappear a little more by the day. It's been weeks. Soon, I may not even be here.

Addict

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...what will happen to me buying drugs on the street, at night...?

Don't Rub Me Out Now

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Don’t rub me out now, not tonight. Or if you do, do it right.

Healing Romance of the Rose

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The dying rose spoke to the wood That kept in it's heart a love of good And all that was in bloom It could not let that happy rose Fret about in terrible death throes Would not be its tomb.

First Contact

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All through their descent sequence K’var had nervous premonitions.