Most read stories

When I Grow Up; Or, Why Teenagers Shouldn't Listen to Angst-Rock

14361436 views66 comments33 favs

rockstar, moviestar, literary supernova – burning out before all the planets are declassified.

The Judge's Wife Part 10

14361436 views77 comments44 favs

The Judge waited for the perfect wave.

Sand Dollars

14361436 views33 comments22 favs

“Life is on life’s terms,” she told me once. Her arm, wrapped in clear cellophane, was freshly adorned with a green-pigmented sand-dollar: a living shell.

The Creative Use of Meal Time

14361436 views44 comments00 favs

We’re more into the punishment that works its way in through the skin and coats the heart anonymously.

Forerunner

14361436 views00 comments00 favs

Morning time had come again. Kojo felt the beginning of the day, but couldn't know it yet. Awareness came first: the temperature of the room, the light behind his eyelids, how much of him could feel a draft. Then, before it was taken from him, he recalled the memory of a…

Salinger Pays Caulfield a Visit

14361436 views99 comments77 favs

Out in the world again, pretending to belong.

Leather and Something Like Infidelity

14361436 views00 comments00 favs

Part of me feels like a wounded animal surrounded by hungry cougars. Another part of me feels like being mauled by a cougar might not be that bad. A third part of me wishes he could punch the second part of me in the face.

When to Say Pussy

14361436 views11 comment11 fav

I have hired a relationship consultant. He helps me through conversations with my wife.

Mob

14351435 views1111 comments44 favs

He is leaning back against a pillar watching the dancing; a spectator to joy – both planned and spontaneous – that’s unfolding in bodies fourteen and fifteen years old in front of him.

Facsimile in Boots

14351435 views22 comments22 favs

There she is. A paper doll of me. The dress, the lilt, the self-hatred. The crowd thins and swells in want of a scene. Conversations begin, pretend, then halt. My gin and tonic sweats into my hand and I lick at the…

next love letter

14351435 views1111 comments11 fav

Eat me so I can sink in your mouth, my paper fraying along the sharp topography of your tongue, lodging in the holes where your teeth used to be. There, I will storm an infection until your mouth inks my words.

Melancholy

14351435 views77 comments44 favs

I went to the lake,to our spot. there were daffodils there.i smiled at that, then cried a little.you want to hear something funny?they scare me. they are so, so yellow.they scream caution.I almost keep walking, but the sun is out, and I am…

Assessing Beauty

14351435 views1212 comments1010 favs

We can’t be sure. Perhaps it is/ some slight exaggeration of one/ or several elements that steals our breath.

The Night Shore

14351435 views33 comments22 favs

Somniloquies rise like the drowned . . .

Strange Times

14351435 views22 comments22 favs

From my place, down here amongst the earth, we have many names for you.

a parable

14351435 views55 comments22 favs

jaws blossoming with drool,/ a captured wolf slinks low/ across the crowded land/ for that most tender lamb/ to catch it by surprise.

Two More Poems

14351435 views66 comments77 favs

1. Weeds of the World (Unite!) We invade the invaders and they invade us, these little Blooming weeds. They raise five flowers and let them blow Into the winds like sheets of stars. All of us Steer by their turning tide. All of us will eventually …

version

14351435 views99 comments66 favs

THIS is what happened — the dead went into remission. Dated may 10 2010. Or it could have been some other day. They were going to be restored later. That's what we were being told. The dead were being given stones to mark their remission. They were getting…

Naked Launch

14351435 views1010 comments66 favs

I enjoy launching words into space. Please dangle a moment here while I prepare the next sentence. Ok. You can come in now. Take boiling for instance. And hawsers. The sound of words on a sheet of paper. The manifesto for a roll of sleep. Sleep is oblivious to…

Cousin

14351435 views1111 comments88 favs

“The beginning was good. That’s what he likes. The moment when you’re driving in the open air and your hair is flying and your skirt is whipping up around your knees, and he’s smoking, of all things, and happy and looking at you."

Center of the Universe

14351435 views22 comments11 fav

How To Write a Poem

14351435 views55 comments44 favs

an EZ How to Guide in 50 simple steps

Migrants

14351435 views1515 comments88 favs

She is too stylish to be crazy, is what the migrant probably thinks. And he's right.

A Life Lived In Outline

14351435 views22 comments22 favs

He began life as we all do, an almost indeterminate blob. Ultrasound sonar plotting his outline on screen. The echo chambers of his beating heart dispelling the ectoplasmic impression of mere ghostly existence. His rudimentary …

Juan Looking Good

14351435 views55 comments11 fav

Juan’s tío, Richard, who works for the city and is the kind of Mexican who thinks he isn’t, took care of the lawyer. Juan checks himself in the mirror, didn’t know how good dressing fancy would feel.

Great Rift Valley

14351435 views11 comment22 favs

she shivered in the ceasefire like a virginal nude brought to life.

The Raisin Effect

14351435 views44 comments44 favs

I imagine diving into a vat of dried fruit, enjoying the unmistakable sweetness in each shriveled morsel, until I find myself biting into an undetected metal shard.

In Our America

14351435 views11 comment11 fav

If I floated about this coffee cafe,Like a spirit, just watching.In this room of framed fake memories,A room of ambient light, marketing to the masses,(It works; it gets 'em in the doors.)If I floated, I'd seeThese people sitting—eating, drinking, sipping, typing,…

6.0 in Eureka

14341434 views11 comment11 fav

"Shit," said the Charge Nurse. "Not again."

Begonia {part four}

14341434 views00 comments00 favs

Mezereon smiled his biggest smile at the princess, but to her it looked quite frightening; rows of gleaming, pointed teeth were what she saw, with wispy tendrils of dark gray smoke still wheedling their way out between them.