Most read stories

Terror From Above

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As airplanes fly low over her children playing in the kiddie pool on the front lawn, Maureen learns something else about her father's new house that lies in the flight path of an international airport.

Pull Another String

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Now as my fearful hand goes unwittingly up I search the faraway trees for the closest possible answer I know I don't know. The clever waiting beast is looking my way with an intelligent roving eye that says he likes to hit. It doesn't matter. You're worse…

Tree voices (revised)

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Shhhhhhh

Wanderer

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There’s an unending parade of drifters, outlaws and crazies and I always have to watch my back, but, then again, that’s nothing new.

Daily Bread

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A little poem about prison

Mistaken Identity

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Scott was sure his father was reassured by the sticky stains in his Penthouse; Dad found them when Scott was thirteen. Dad had just one issue of that venerable porno, which Scott defiled with his joy. It was not the Penthouse models…

Why I Write

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Creep up behind me one day and prick my skin. I promise you won’t draw blood – for it is ink that will spurt from my veins.

Travis & Jared

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“Now I see clearly my whole life is pointed in one direction — there never has been any choice for me (Travis Bickle, "Taxi Driver").

Born Here (from Grand Street literary journal)

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I really only started reading books after the folks left. Right away I thought maybe I should have a system for it, so I go alphabetically by author, one book by one author. The first time around I was reading the books everyone knows, so when I was in th

SMASH AND GRAB!

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Blast! crashed through Shelter of car Violence! of blow! On window glass It winced! on Four wheels

Grand Theft Auto (a true story)

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He took the car out into the middle of Nowhere, Mexico, and drove it at top speed, off-road for a day and a night. I am talking strut-breaking, axle-wrecking, wheel-bending, paint-peeling conditions and balls-to-the-wall, testosterone-drunk driving.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 3

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It was like watching one of those vintage eighteen-frames-per-second films of someone trying to open a stuck umbrella.

Self-Fired Bullets

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Grasping for control over social consciousness Because cigarettes are too deadly and so is anorexia

Third World Problems: On Breaking My Kindle in Africa

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I blame the fucking mosquito net.

Down

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Locked at the highest rung Unable to budge at all

Serpent

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It chases other newborns down and eats them.

Frederick (from Unsaid literary journal)

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It started like this: just him saying, "Nice to meet you, Marie," and me, while I just said his own name back to him, at the same time thinking, "I want you to take me to a hotel room someday, Frederick. I think I’ll like the way you’d make me feel...

MISCELLANEOUS SHORT SHORTS

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Maybe you, citizen, should be a jerk. Jerks get where they are going. You, citizen, what about you? Handy, dandy, where’s the jerk? Conformists. Sheep. All of you, all of us, boiling out our radiators. Spending our day, our days, our lives in coope

Real Talk – A Ghost Story

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Tunnel hobos, all hootched up high, think a sign's all about super powers, mind reading, clairvoyance, dig?

Lavender, A Liberal

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Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit, named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced. Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl, who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at all. …

Gothic Clockwork Apparatus Man

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an awkward stage between glued popsicle stick marsupial, and mechanical tin foil mammal.

The Opposite of Remember is Demember

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No matter how you do it, forgetting something doesn’t mean as much once you’ve forgotten.

LECTURES

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LECTURES A Bra Burning When Freud painted “Envy,” the women collapsed, holding fans to their faces. Hot that year, they retired to the Tyrols. 50 Days of Palindromes Although Thiebaud painted cakes like women,…

Untitled

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What else, H, is there to say about heartbreak? What else could it be but our hands, cupped as if holding water against our chests, then broken into halves. Or the picture of this one, pretending to load a gun. Or this one, soaked in smoke—asking for

So Comes Love

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Her students read their work aloud in class, haltingly, sometimes proudly, and their willingness amazed Miriam. They were immigrants and retirees, carpenters, security guards, Indian nannies, Iranian escapees. She loved their odd word choices, the lack of editorial impulse.…

Tough Love

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If they don’t cover consequences in your gifted and talented program, you may care to research it.

Beyond the Brown Paper Bag: Baggers & The Bagged Items

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[THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CONTENT, AND TO RUN IN THE TIME ALLOTTED.]

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?

Your Guide to Wi-Fi Security

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Public Wi-Fi ”hotspots” allow men and women to ogle each other discreetly while pretending to write the Great American Novel.

Eyes Without a Face

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It's tough when muscle gets in the way of memory. The way pain is the only thing I can remember about certain things. Fifth grade, that's what I think of. I think of pain. Not just abstract pain, not some we'll get to it later adolescent angst or ennui.…