Most read stories

The Shadow People

15301530 views55 comments11 fav

Two summers later, the ritual began. Carol left her house at midnight, having served her husband and daughter a heavy dinner that left them caged in their sleep. She was like a thief working in reverse: she rose from bed with her husband’s first snore,

recipe

15301530 views1313 comments66 favs

secret recipe

Family

15301530 views99 comments1010 favs

For instance, my sister's husband. If I say brown socks, yellow boxer shorts, fishnet undershirt. If I say plastic bag and two tepid beers. And a voice that glides to falsetto when he: you're a tad too obscene for my taste, Julia, while he tries to light the filter end of…

Unkilled Jeff

15301530 views00 comments00 favs

"Oh — what is this 'work' thing the philosophers speak of" sort of thing.

What I Did For Pho

15291529 views99 comments44 favs

Once upon a time there was a Vietnamese restaurant. And then there were two, and four, and eight...

Jack-in-the-Box U-Haul

15291529 views66 comments66 favs

“When I was six years old, Dad came home from Vietnam and picked me and Mama up from her sister's house in Boston. We packed a U-Haul with everything we owned from T.V. to toothbrush. Dad hitched the trailer to the Rambler and drove us South, back home to Carolina. A…

One Day

15291529 views22 comments00 favs

I was ashamed of my conscience.

A Beggar's Welcome

15291529 views44 comments55 favs

. . . it's all we ever want -- the holding.

The Miracle

15291529 views77 comments00 favs

On the way to the drinking fountain, Elysia Martin, a third grader at St. Michael's Parochial School, heard a voice calling her name. When she turned toward the white plaster statue of the Virgin Mary that sat between twin hedges in the rose garden, she

The Chords are Clean, the Growl is Real

15291529 views55 comments11 fav

"Good, it's Link Wray again,"

we're already at the movies

15291529 views66 comments66 favs

israeli flares light gaza/ casting incandescent nudity/ upon jumbled puzzle piece buildings.

SNOWSTORM

15291529 views1010 comments66 favs

long lines, short words

Some Splendor In Some Grass

15291529 views99 comments77 favs

As they lay in the pasture on a warm summer's afternoon, with the sky blue, the sun shining, he looked across at her, peacefully asleep by his side. How he loved her. Their year together had been one of joy and happiness.He idly nibbled on a blade of grass, remembering the…

Wild Dreams of Reality, 13

15291529 views00 comments00 favs

At 7:30 that evening my brother knocked on Parker's front door. When I went to let him in, sweat was running off Darrell's head like he'd been hit by a water balloon. The air was absolutely unmoving, and there was the smell of tar from the asphalt in th

The Widow and a Portrait of Jesus in Grayson's Nursing Home

15291529 views1616 comments1313 favs

He'd hung above her head for months.

Man-Bomb (excerpt from a Bromance in progress)

15291529 views11 comment11 fav

The crowd- which consisted of exclusively men with beards and djembe drums and women with hairly legs poking out of corduroy patchwork skirts- cowered and crawled in fear around the angry man-bomb, mortally frightened yet encouraged to shimmy because the

Residual

15291529 views88 comments66 favs

Our afterlife depends upon// what interesting shape

Crack in the Cosmos

15291529 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

All that Remains

15281528 views33 comments11 fav

The drapes are closed against the sunlight, but Ginny can feel someone in the room. She peers through barely open eyes so as not to let on she's awake. She adjusts her position in a way she hopes mimics sleep, turns her head to the side. A woman…

A Figure Left the Building

15281528 views1616 comments1010 favs

A figure left the building.

Literate Reply

15281528 views66 comments00 favs

an oven mitt in Dachau

The King's Snit

15281528 views1313 comments88 favs

Political doggerel.

Her

15281528 views1616 comments77 favs

It's time, more than anything

Rain Dance

15281528 views22 comments11 fav

You were gone, long gone, and I could no longer smell your scent as I walked through the empty house. I couldn't bring myself to unpack the boxes, and they lurked like a forest of overgrown drab Legos.

Grocery Deliveries

15281528 views11 comment00 favs

I was shooting baskets in the driveway when the Mexican kid delivered the groceries. He drove in fast and loud . . .

Someone for Everyone Parts 1-10: A work in progress

15281528 views44 comments00 favs

“Well, aren’t you the cutest thing?” Shelly looked around for the source of the line and one of the better looking bar flies met her gaze. He wore a faded t-shirt with a swoosh graphic that read ‘Just Do Me‘. True to its mystical nature, her indefatigabl

Flight

15281528 views66 comments33 favs

Another bird hits the large plate glass patio doors as I am sipping my morning coffee.

The Jaws of Life

15281528 views33 comments00 favs

You’ve known her since grade school and even though you’ve never copped a feel, it gave you a strange chill when you heard boys talking about her breasts, pressing against madras or chamois with some devilish life force, or how one day she’ll fuck l

The Sleep of Trees (Three Parables), part 3

15271527 views3737 comments2323 favs

in a puddle of water, the butterfly rests on a stone

My Piper Laurie

15271527 views66 comments22 favs

Eddie meets Sarah Packard, a “college girl” played by Piper Laurie. She walks with a limp, a fact Eddie doesn’t notice at first because she’s sitting down at a diner table in a bus station. She’s alcoholic and writes poetry.