Most read stories

Starting from Scratch

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Each time his eyes closed, he shook off the sleep, whimpered, and opened them wide again. I’d never watched a baby fall asleep before, but I realized at that time that falling asleep could be a scary thing. The world gets fuzzy and starts slipping awa

5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally)

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5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally) 1. The American wife asked her French husband why it took him 50 words to ask which pass they would need. He said, “Because it does,” and they argued more, each in their own words. 2. The child…

Rubber-Band Requiem

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“Now we lay you in your grave There was no way you could be saved You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell Which is why you will burn in hell.”

Quitting

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—It’s difficult to say, he said. I have mood swings. Women don’t like that. They become upset.

The River Where His Lover Lay

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“He put his stuff down—sunglasses, lotion and so forth—and I noticed there’s a little notebook that he didn’t have before.‘What’s that?’” I asked, and he said ‘Nothing.’”

Exchange Student

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Sometimes he could feel so small he believed he could fit through the eye of a needle.

Hometown News: Newsprint Jesus (part 1)

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I had enough judgment, anger and vengefulness from the people around me in the steel town of Pueblo, Colorado, where I was growing up. I didn’t need more from my God.

Drift

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I was at Mike's place when the call came. My brother sounded so accusing that I wanted to punch him in the face. But he was way upstate. "Dad died today," he said, as if I could have somehow known or prevented it. It was sudden. A heart attack. He was…

What you're waiting for.

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I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.

Greenback Fly

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It doesn't take a genius to figure how he sank, in the drink, like Jeff Buckley. Like a stone.

Orpheus Today

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It is only seven-thirty but the night is full, gloom seizing Highway 66. There is a carcass on the road, maybe a human, slumped next to an empty ice cream truck. Several stars hang up in the East, drunken constellations scrambling to find meaning.

The Obsession of Bentley Squeamish

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The thing Bentley remembered most about her was she had no body odor. None.

Still Life (55 words)

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It wasn't so much the softness of the bed that kept her from sleep, or the pungent bleach-scent of the unfamiliar sheets, but the lack of her clock's familiar tick, tick, tick. Or was it a missing heartbeat? Awake, she watched his chest. On the table, an empty pill …

I Don't Understand Poets

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I haven’t read many of them, these poets that they speak of – Whitman and his Leaves Of Grass, Mary Oliver and her wild life

Low On the Hog

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Living lower on the hog than anticipated lower on the hog than previously expected lower on the hog than desired Living on the underside of the hog belly pretty much bouncing on the ground beneath the aforementioned hog belly Living clos

At the Jube

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I started walking around the Jube like any other sheep, lemming, or penguin: passing plate glass windows, one after another.

THE KING OF ULSTER

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How does a mixed couple come together in the Troubles?

Wilma

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Every morning, Wilma's husband Richard would cross the street and visit with a neighbor, always after the neighbor's husband left for work. Wilma was a loner, never bothered with neighbors. She enjoyed sitting on her patio in her lounge chair,…

Moony Star Moony Star

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a lost children…

A Christmas Mistake

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But that night we were happy, looking all around at the bright lights of the several cities that we could see.

Gravity as Destiny

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Falling// is something that comes quite naturally/ to puffed up things. Like the soufflé

Ashes (for RC)

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Floating along the ebbs of the ocean,toward the horizon, where time has no say,an end that will never be reached.

That Which Does Not Kill You (Only Postpones The Inevitable)

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Harold Smithe awoke that Tuesday morning precisely at 6 am. He did this every day for as long as he could remember. Even on the weekends when his schedule varied. Well, varied slightly. He lay in bed trying to wake up and mulled over the things he needed to accomplish for…

Residual

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Our afterlife depends upon// what interesting shape

Black Hole of Beauty

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Surrounded by a stressfull sense of trying to understand the human condition. The flawed characters in the story speak of past violence and conflict. It is about a boy who is dealing with a recent suicide attempt on his own life & the regrets that come wi

Back in the Shower

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Naked, we stood in my shower. When she kicked my tool, I noticed she had a toe ring.

Political Poem

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As if to ask if I'm okay, as if to ask aren't we the same two on this wet December morning as ever, as yesterday, a month ago even, she shoots me a look as I stand by the bed, then her sane mild brown eyes…

Fa La La La La

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A pinprick breaks the black/ and pins the spin of constellations/ around its still point.

Once upon a time.

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"Tell me a story."

Chicken

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Puddles—not his real name, as you’ve probably gathered, but the kind of nickname a fat kid got tagged with in our neighborhood—kept stopping short, picking underwear out of his ass or taking a breather. This had the unfortunate byproduct of my crashing in