Most read stories

Shades

16201620 views66 comments55 favs

It was the sodabottle glasses that scared Entro the most. Stubbled with scratches, taped with residual angst and piercing his soul with contempt he’d seen only on the National Geographic Focus Antarctica series - as Seals readied to mangle for Alpha bragg

Lavender, A Liberal

16191619 views88 comments1111 favs

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. …

The Hangman's Poor Gift

16191619 views1212 comments1010 favs

of placing the rope just so; of settling the veil with care --

On being offered a seat on the Bart train

16191619 views88 comments55 favs

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

Processes

16191619 views1212 comments99 favs

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

Coleridge on Urine

16191619 views1616 comments1111 favs

What a beautiful Thing / Urine is

Tiger-eyed

16191619 views00 comments00 favs

The tiger-eye beads around her neck would wink at me like a nervous uncle sharing a secret with a child. They roll on her sternum like marbles. At night, on her nightstand, they whisper my secret to the patchouli-scented room. How long have they known?

Beyond Steps that Falter

16191619 views1111 comments66 favs

I might wish I was anything including some dust on the shelf where maybe I might blow away unseen like the coming of rust

Why I Write

16191619 views99 comments44 favs

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.

Prisoners (edited)

16191619 views1515 comments44 favs

This cell the sole certainty, all else steeped in mystery. Why should we be here?

Slippery Slope

16191619 views66 comments66 favs

A man who is sexually attracted to playground equipment was recently banned from “any location with a slide” after being caught having sex with one. Christopher Johnson, 46, was described by the newspaper who reported this item as having a “powerful…

Mastery of All Thangs Including Sonatas and Piledrivers

16191619 views55 comments44 favs

My old buddy Snoop Dogg saunters into the room, and we go through a handshake routine that takes over ten minutes, ending with double-backflips and some brotherly penis swordplay.

Whoever Said

16191619 views55 comments11 fav

Though we came to life as to a school/ We leave without graduating

Heat

16191619 views1111 comments88 favs

Flames dance behind glass

Time Flies

16191619 views55 comments44 favs

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

Beelzebub

16191619 views55 comments55 favs

The jewels were dragonflies, buzzing lazily, Beelzebub’s hair a golden meadow.

Down

16191619 views00 comments00 favs

Locked at the highest rung Unable to budge at all

The Man Who Defied Gravity

16191619 views33 comments11 fav

Let us be stranded in the Andes and have to eat human flesh or at least toothpaste to survive! Let there be an earthquake! Let there be a flood! Let there be a tornado, a new ice age, an invasion from Mars. Only: let me survive.

Nineteenth Century Noise

16191619 views2121 comments1313 favs

The virtuoso tortures a violin/ in homage to Paganini.

Arcana Magi Wisp

16191619 views00 comments00 favs

Gon found himself slowing behind everyone. His wings slowly tired. The bird took a chance and pulled up. He could feel it behind him.

Crack in the Cosmos

16191619 views22 comments22 favs

There’s a crack in the cosmos, and pink is leaking through. There’s a crack in the cosmos, fix the sink, the toilet leak. There are many cracks in the cosmos, numerous. This is how time escapes. Good grief, they’re going to suck the cream

Pull Another String

16181618 views55 comments55 favs

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…

from Presence

16181618 views55 comments44 favs

facts are facets are / things in the act // the truth speaks softly // as time saying amber / to the enduring sap // words come and go / like leaves like men // we the tree remain ...

A Love Letter of a Cannibal

16181618 views00 comments11 fav

Dear Butterfly, Are you there ? Wherever there is ? Are you there, crossing your feet on top of each other, sipping your coffee while observing the sky from behind those cat-eye glasses of yours ? 3 days, 8 months and 11 years. That's exactly how long since the last time…

The Land Collector

16181618 views1010 comments77 favs

He liked owning acreage.

A Killing in the Market

16181618 views55 comments44 favs

Everyone hoped to be assigned somewhere they could just drop in on their way home for Memorial Day weekend. Someone said, Blake, you’re single. You hate your family, don’t you?

Drive-by Neighborhood Fiction Flash

16181618 views99 comments77 favs

It's about dinner time. My neighborhood is in Sa-bur-bia. Driving my gold 2007 Malibu i pass Chick. She notices me and stares standing in front of her house. We were friends about ten years ago. Chick is still divorced. Tall skinny legs. Educated blu-ish eyes. Wet…

Freeze! It's the Library Police!

16181618 views55 comments44 favs

A Texas man was recently arrested for failing to return a GED study guide to his local public library. He'd kept it out for three years. This is the kind of news story that brings joy to a librarian's heart.The library where I work just installed a…

That's It

16181618 views22 comments22 favs

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…

Half Staff

16181618 views1313 comments99 favs

We mourn/ in perpetuity and are inured