Most read stories

The bamboo stick

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I no longer go for walks without my bamboo stick. Tightly held in my hand, thin and light, it beats the invisible particles which try to land on me and bite. My face is hidden as in shame under a rough gag, my hands are getting rusty, missing the touch of other hands. My…

Lullaby

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One morning, she used a few prim phrases to break up with me. She had her suitcases packed by lunch. She was gone by dinner. Two weeks later, she emailed me a picture of herself sitting on a small brown couch.

Waste

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Roger's assigned route had him picking up medical waste at most of the plastic surgery offices in town. He smelled it on his skin by the end of the day. The plastic surgery places were less of a hassle than the hospital and worlds away from the free c

A Night of Not Knowing

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I lie here sleepless and wait for the moment when I will touch...

Nell

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Was it hope or despair that drove her to walk out the door of the place she had called home for the past twenty years? Did she feel sorrow or relief to leave behind a husband and five children?

Before I Forget (Notes from the Oubliette)

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Are you there? It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to. Besides Oscar and Wilde, I mean. I feed them crumbs of bread. They’re my pet rats, my only friends. Besides you, of course. How kind of you to remember me! How shall I begin?

Jesus in Eden

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Eve is eating a plum. The plum is cold and how it got cold is sort of a mystery, but there are mysteries everywhere and the cold juice on her face doesn't really incline her to worry much about mysteries.

Oh, Fish Eggs!

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A motivational speaker I know intimately cannot abide any form of swearing.

An Admirer Visits Paul Bowles

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I dropped out of college and flipped a coin, a 1929 half-dollar, and decided if heads, suicide. If tails, a life of perpetual travel.

Along Came Doreen

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I didn't really know her. Yet, to me, she and her friends epitomized the local hip scene.

Mocking Bird

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There were always mocking birds around my house.

Getting There

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The monarchs that migrate to Mexico and California in the autumn every year live for only a month.

Frankie and Alice, 2013. Brooklyn, New York

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1.)At the corner deli, sweat dripping down my face, I ask for black, but Frankie adds milk. Just to spite me. Because I won't sleep with him. As if. Wonder what his wife would say? Punch me in the jaw, right? Like maybe the rules about holy wedlock vary…

Red Fox Rampant

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Shit, Marcie, I thought you were taking something. I mean you did say you were on the pill. I don’t want no screaming brat. Get rid of it.

Twine

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I thought of driving over there across town, steering with buttered hands.

The Lonely Snake

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A solitary snake, his belly full, stretched out in the sun. His uncoiling swept sand and small rocks to the left and right. Ah, he thought, I have the power to move mountains from my path. See how the lowly earth makes way for my comfort.

The Night Before the Last Day of Summer

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Tonight is our last night to dream.

Dirty Mother For Ya, a response to Memphis Minnie, with a little help from Roosevelt Sykes and Blind Boy Fuller on Mothers Day

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Just stay at home woman, and do your job / wash those dishes, mama, its what I pays you for

Black Lace (a revenge fantasy) 1

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The stainless steel tiles are cool upon the soles of her feet. Attendants have arranged all of her equipment, both digital and mechanical, including ink and needles. An overhead screen snaps into view, and his young muscled body is revealed.

Midnight Riders

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One dinner party, two couples, three bottles of wine. A moonbeam shone on the balcony. They felt a slight shifting under their chairs and heard a quiet scraping sound, then the apartment slid out from the building and lifted away.

Mr. Seale Goes to Antioch

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Black Panther Founder Bobby Seale has come to Yellow Springs, Ohio—a leafy village east of Dayton-- to carry his message of "the continuing human liberation struggle" to the 2002 graduating class of Antioch College.

Carver Country

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My first love was a woman of principle. Never deny your man was her motto.

Johnny Mercer's Pier

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I’m a black and white figure--out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Another Story About Me And Some Guy

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We met because I hate the actor Bruce Willis.

Soliloquoy on Ma

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“Your sister is a slut,” said Ma to me over supper.

Cary Grant's Underpants

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Cary Grant wore women's panties. Not boxers, or even briefs. Panties. He said he wore them because they were more comfortable, according to “An Affair To Remember,“ a memoir written by one of his lovers. It gives you a whole new perspective on…

Rome Ants In The Sky

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~!~

Staring at Waves

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the waves all green and gooey, all / pommes frites, ruinous, insolent, half / fractal

Who In This Room Shared a Drink with Johnny Cash? (Memoir)

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...where I grew up the only celebrity one could count on seeing was Santa Claus...

The Light at the End of You

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I'm reading your remains.