Most read stories

Recent Rejection Letters

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Dear Meg, Thank you for submitting your breasts to our evening last night. Your cleavage has been carefully considered, but unfortunately I've decided not to explore further. That said, remember that I am a fan of women in general; my tastes, biases, and opinions…

Snow

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She made them all watch ``Oceans Eleven'', even the baby...

Fiancée

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We walk to the Narrows from the boutique, fortified by talk of men and fashion. The Narrows is a blues bar known for outbreaks of small violence. I am wearing the winter white swing coat I bought for the wedding and the gold and turquoise beads.

Apple

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Madeleines, which he hadn’t touched in twelve years, had a place in all this, were accessories in his daughter’s violation.

Some Fairy Tale and Sleeping Beauty Poems

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The apple his slightly necrophiliac kiss saved her from soaks in the petrified sun, turned to leather, like a screaming skull of summer in its glass enactment case.

Journey of Thade

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"I will die here." It came like a warm breeze. The first thought that entered his mind when he came to. A low groan of pain escaped. A surrendering kind of sound one makes upon seeing their world collapse in all of its red raging glory. Fear g

Problems Pretty Girls With Pretty Faces Face

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I think about my husband, who is dead, who has left me in this position.

How To Make Potato Salad

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Boil 8-10 red potatoes and 6 eggs in heavily salted water. Remember that the first chef you worked under taught you to salt egg-boiling water because the salt breaks down membranes between shell and meat, making the egg easier to peel later on. Decide tha

My Mother Was An Upright Piano

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My mother was an upright piano, spine erect, lid tightly closed, unplayable except by the maestro. My father was not the maestro.

The Serious Writer and Her Pussy

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One can smuggle drugs inside a pussy. (also, see tags!)

Woman, Running Late, in a Dress

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Gasps and shouts, a hand on my arm, sequined gowns and expensive colognes parting before me. And then, there, Raymond’s crumpled form on the hardwood floor of the foyer, like a sleeve torn from a jacket, the stitches frayed and useless.

Conjugal Visit

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Sandy stood with three year old Josh, in line at the Santa Cruz County Correctional Facility in Watsonville. They were waiting to visit Tim, who she had met when she moved back to California after breaking up with Josh's father. If you call fleeing in fear…

Revenge at the Nudist Camp

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When my mother called to tell me what had happened with Francine, she was crying. The minute Francine left, my mother understood that woman had bamboozled her. We got on the next jet down to L.A. and rented a car. Gina and I drove all the way out past Ont

Moving Day

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I didn’t hear that Duncan Pratt had been killed until I’d been out of the Army for two weeks and had gone four days without a single thought about that final year in Vietnam.

The Girl in the Storm

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There once was a girl who was lost in a storm. She wandered this way and that, this way and that, trying to find a way home. But the sky was too dark, and the rain too fierce; all the girl did was go in circles. Then, suddenly, there were arms around her

Mario's Three Lives

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The plumber has three lives left or else he is already dead.

Pigeons Having Sex On An Air Conditioner In New York

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“The place is great” we told the rental agent “except for one thing “Pigeons are nesting on the air conditioner in the bedroom window “At 7 a.m. the pigeons were having sex on the air conditioner “They started getting r

Insect Haikus

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The grasshopper leaps And bounds through the green meadow Fleeing from it’s foe

The Winston Peacock Transpiration

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Winston Peacock had had a long day that New Year’s Eve of the final full year of his old life. There had been contemplation about the grave failures, the money lost. The third quarter of this past fiscal year had been especially dismal.

What's Eating William Gass?

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Sometime in the 60s a philosophy teacher named William H. Gass was writing a novel. He had it about where he wanted it when someone stole the manuscript from his car.

Chop Your Own Firewood and Learn To Juggle: Advice I'm Going To Ignore From "Life's Little Instruction Book"

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"Life's Little Instruction Book." There are some words of wisdom here that I plan to ignore.

Star Anise

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She wonders if Minh knows fear, if it is something that forms in the womb, like fingernails.

Magic Jane

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This is what magic feels like. Excitement. Clarity. Danger. Justice.

The OD & Hepatitis RR or Bust

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We got this new group man--it's dynamite! I'm up front--no more bass--just front man--and this cat Jack on lead and Stokes the drummer and this outasight piano--he used to be with the Dead--

One-Way Ticket

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Margaret and I are going to Chicago. Everything we do this morning feels final, as if we are doing it for the last time, which is probably true.

The I Hate to Fuck Book

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Some women, it is said, like to fuck. This book--The I Hate to Fuck Book--is not for them.

Dizzy

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It’s never good to get arrested on an empty stomach.

Danëh

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Freedom comes with a price

Cellini's Salt Cellar

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An old man writes the story of his life into a book.

The Hollow

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They live on the edge of town. There is a cornfield behind their house. When the wind blows, it is like the hands of many children clapping.