Most read stories

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.

Prisoners (edited)

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

Aurora

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Soon everyone will know what is coming.You cast a spell of heaviness and I crumple, horizontal. Like Aurora, sleep is my destiny.Tantalus in reverse, my curse from food forever I will flee, while everything changes;discomfort and…

Concentric

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In mid dream, mid journey, there's a barrier we must cross, flat and vast like an ocean. We're told the barrier is a monster. To cross the barrier we must maim one of its eyes. There, rising to the surface is half a large…

My dark job history

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Sometime in the late 60s when I was thirteen I had this paper route for the San Mateo Times.

Fugue No. 4

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I am learning to write.

Dithyrambic

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What's that snitch doin' here?

Tchotchkes

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Each little token is the world/ as you knew it at each time and place

Combinatorics

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“I'm thinking about math class,” she said. “The solution to three factorial.” “Easy,” Leo said.

Want

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I want you closeI want to feel youinside me,softening me untilmy borders are blurredand I'm hardly breathing,my heart swellingso big itbrings me to my knees,I want to know thepain of losing youeach time youclose your eyes andgo to sleep anddream of someone else,I want to…

The Man Who Defied Gravity

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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.

Girls U-10 Soccer Yakuza

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“Jesus Christ!” the man screams in pain, and a chorus of “Ewww” is heard from the girls' bench, where the severed body part has landed in a Yoplait strawberry yogurt.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Lasagna

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When we talked about the lasagna, we were, I see now, talking about different things. I.e., I was talking about lasagna, and you were talking about almost everything but. You weren't talking about the dry, burnt noodles or…

A Killing in the Market

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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?

The Ebsen Reaction

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...the fatal bleeding-out of the love receptors. They call it “Juliet's Tears.”

Old Penny

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Nothing about it// is attractive- its color, it’s design,/ it’s market value. I leave it be and watch

The mannequins

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I try to enjoy my bookbut the mannequins keep tapping at the windowWhen I look up they vanish Outsidefibreglass clouds are kept in placeby invisible wires——Sometimes the mannequins …

The Canoeist's Luncheon. Renoir

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The artist leans back in his chair, smoking a cigarette after lunch, looking away from the table toward the right He is dressed in white, and he's practically stretched out his entire length, to relax after rowing the boat all morning. Sunlight

Layover Memories

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It was a pleasant time, my thoughts were mostly good ones, with little effort wasted on regret.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

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rocker bogie system

Express

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Once, asked what time it was, M. replied, "Eternity."

A Museum of Numbers

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At street level there is a small arrow on which is printed “Museum of Numbers” that points up a long narrow staircase. There is a restaurant on the first floor. All the way up the stairs, the air is permeated with smell of fried foods

Preparation

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We may not be capable of even trying to appreciate the fact of mortality until we are somewhat older—let's say 18 years old. But, from the age of 18 until we die—and die we will; we know that—we have the opportunity to spend some time thinking abou

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…

Divorcing Delia

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I held her hand through two divorces, I warned her that gorgeous Geoffrey was homosexual when she was oblivious, and I fed her children when she was off at rehab (four times before it 'took').

Beyond Steps that Falter

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

Sax Named Pegasus

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I was just sitting in the corner, stirring my stories with a straw that sucked characters out of bars.

What's Wrong

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I’ll tell you what’s wrong

I Wake Up Teetering

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I wake up on the edge of the mattress, teetering. The dog is looking at me funny.

The King's Snit

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Political doggerel.