Most read stories

Buzz Kill

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Blood had soaked through his Converse All-Stars, and into his cotton sox. It was the smell of metal, of iron more specifically, that nudged his mind out from the fog of shock and denial, closer to the reality of his circumstances.

In Paris, The Sweltering

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Then dared each other to travel Much further

Air Conditioning Bill

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The last night, I shivered in bed until three a.m., the blankets wouldn’t work, or the socks, or my tears, but I reassured my heart that my next love would be warmer. 
He was. 
And our air conditioning bill was so high we could’t afford it.

The Thousandth Day

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She pictured the President leaving the hospital a few days later, hobbling on a cane. Jackie beside him, Caroline and John-John dashing from a waiting limousine. He couldn’t die. She’d looked into his eyes. John F. Kennedy spoke to her.

Parallels

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“I honestly can't believe how much you eat, honey.”, Lenora said as I put down the fork after gorging myself on breakfast. Twelve pancakes, four eggs, two cups of coffee, a glass of milk, and half a pound of bacon had passed through my lips this morning. …

Losing Things

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I infuriate myself with this gift.

Lost

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I can't find my way back to the library. I've heard of this happening, that if you leave even for just one day and for a very good reason, as good a reason as mine, you may not find your way back. Now why should this be so? I do not understand this library. It houses…

Secrets and Piles of Money

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The dog awakens at the sound of a petal falling, sure that barbarians are at the gate. She opens wide her yellow teeth.

Rio, 1946

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Now his daughter was an American citizen and Max wanted only the chance to board the SS Maua and disembark in New York.

The Big Name Buttons

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Pay attention: our names were Bobby, Didi, Joanie, Mitch and Sam. It was popular in those days to wear big name buttons across your chest, and we’d line up side-by-side as we watched our reflections affix said buttons, anchoring them to our stiff lapels

the best laugh i've had all day

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when down the street/ a female cat/ yowls with the force/ of a red light blazing/ in an alley.

Time Flies

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Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince

I'll be Home for Christmas - 2

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Warning: contains sexually suggestive comments.

Small Talk

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Her fingers scampered over the table, practicing the deft stitching of the basilar artery.

Van Gogh: Sidewalk Cafe at Night

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The heart of those stars is a dab of yellow light. The darkness of the blue night appears so deep because the downward strokes of the actual sky are interspersed with a violet that’s almost black,

Popcorn Tigers

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The last row of furniture is all black leather. In unison the tigers hop onto a couch a piece, sit calmly on their haunches, and reach for remote controls buried in the cushions. Roaring, they paw at the remotes.

That's It

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I am heading to work. It's early and Clare is still asleep. When I hit the breezeway I realize that I forgot my keys. I walk back into the house and start rustling through the junk on the table by the door. After a moment I sense someone standing behind me and…

42 Mirrors

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What becomes the identity of a woman who has been denied all her rights and thrown into a mental institution?

The Mermaid's Revenge

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Lapping salt beads from/ my crackling, ecstatic lips.

Light, Now

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It's 100 degrees in your tower/and that braid you're so proud of/is one hot ladder to nowhere.

Human Spirit - a poem

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It feels for an exit.

Falling Off The Roof

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"As the thing lurches upright, I can see now that it is an old woman with snake eyes… a dead old woman with snake eyes and peeling flesh. She is putrid and maggoty. She is coming right at us. She is my mother."

Haiku Haiku, Fattened Feral Kittens, Hobgoblin Test

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and watch the bird play and squirrel play/ and the twitching of cottontail noses

On being offered a seat on the Bart train

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Remember when I entered a room and turned heads is my youthful charm a sputtering fire in the hearth

Processes

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How to Boil Water How to Cook an Egg How to Eat How to Think How to Love How to Die

A note from Liu Xiabo

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I think about the weight of those words—how they are silenced by the weight of stone, by the weight of 11 years in a Jinzhou prison cell,

Bliss

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When he got out of sick bay, they moved him into a room with three other alkies. A kid, a tree trimmer, and a Catholic priest.

Water Break

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Whenever you act as if you're one of themit makes perfectly sad sense tome; you are one of them; we're supposed to believe there areno shadows in that particular choice? When you areone of them, they say youfall asleep with a peaceful droopinglip to your smile. When…

for my part

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I fear osiris with his feather rising to meet the raven in mid-air they will turn to look at me decide if I go through the door of no return into fierce landscape on my knees I will crumple into the foetal…

God's Vial

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The porous bear the anchorite’s vial