Most read stories

Ladybird

15941594 views22 comments11 fav

On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

The Ice Cream Mantra

15941594 views66 comments33 favs

Chant the ice cream mantra. Prance the do dah day ballet. Trot the t-bone tango two-step. Dance the livelong day away.

Genocide City Zone

15941594 views00 comments00 favs

Welcome to the genocide city zone I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay We've been killing folks here All the live-long day If you want to join us You'll have to pay the price Your soul's the cost, so ante up C'mon and shoot the dice Welcome to the genocide city zone …

maybe just a little too sensitive

15941594 views33 comments11 fav

"do you know what your problem is when it comes to girls?" she must mean other than the fact that they're all completely insane. or at least all the ones i've dated.

Deadheading

15941594 views11 comment00 favs

No matter how much he composes and prepares, he cannot override the electrical trigger in his brain. Something to do with the resonance of physical memory. It remembers amplitudes of current.

boring

15941594 views88 comments44 favs

You don't want to knowthe details of my lifethe gossipthe boring moments strung togetheracross the lap ofmy sense of responsibilityit drives methrough the daysdoing this and thatchore, check on the listi am tired and need to stop for a drinkand then, i am filled up for a…

O Where Did Our Funny Go?

15941594 views66 comments55 favs

What a nation! First we lost our money Now we’ve lost our funny

Greener Than Thou: Saving the Earth, One Smackdown At A Time

15941594 views22 comments11 fav

Are you a hostile person who gets into trouble when you express your anger? Would you like to annoy the hell out of people and get away with it?

The Show Must Go On

15941594 views55 comments44 favs

I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation

When Spectacle Replaces Ritual,

15941594 views1010 comments44 favs

The aisle, nave and/ transept twist themselves/ into an auditorium.

The Old Dog (in response to Brian Warfield)

15941594 views33 comments00 favs

Blend the dog a drink and sit down beside him and draw straws for regrets.

Startle Reflex

15941594 views77 comments77 favs

I’m decades in and it hasn’t gone away. In all other respects, I am normal. Life is hard, but I’m not complaining. The thing is, I am in a constant state of falling.

Painting with Big Mama

15941594 views44 comments33 favs

I still see Big Mama leaning over her garden to pick a zinnia to put in her still life. Her old pink slip, hanging diagonally a foot under her hiked up, ragged, stained dress, half covered by her paint smock, which matched her white, faux fur, bedroom sli

Alternate Tale

15941594 views22 comments22 favs

Suppose Eve, strolling through the sunlit Garden, had not stumbled on that particular Tree at all, the wily serpent twined in its lower branches?

Full Frame

15941594 views00 comments00 favs

A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 21

15941594 views77 comments44 favs

Francesco needed a magnifying glass to read her little missives.

ghosts

15931593 views44 comments22 favs

conflicts in time

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 40

15931593 views88 comments55 favs

—Mazel tov, schmazel tov!

TRAUMA

15931593 views77 comments44 favs

Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

Space Program

15931593 views1212 comments77 favs

Mercury and Gemini disappointed.

The Favor

15931593 views00 comments00 favs

“You did what?” “Well, the bike is a classic. Getting the proper parts for it just isn’t easy.” “You’ll end up like smeared all over the road doing things like that, and I’ll have to pick you up again. Geez. Watch out for this branch-” Bruce held

Calling All Feathers, Do You Hear

15931593 views66 comments77 favs

These little things, they are the hopes We were waiting for, they are everywhere. I made this one just for you. Call them feathers. Call them roses. You'll always See them if you need them. These Little things carry the good news…

Max & Julia

15931593 views44 comments00 favs

I heard the basketball hitting the pavement in the park across the street, right outside our window... I heard it every day in an evenly spaced rhythm, as if it was keeping time, like a metronome on my life...

A Scalar Boson a Day

15931593 views44 comments33 favs

. . . the empiricism of the mechanical had wound tight into her, lessons her few calendars could never impart without aid from sundials, hourglasses, clocks.

Conversations

15931593 views1111 comments1010 favs

That won’t kill me, will it? I asked. Maybe, the doctor said.

Catch & Release: Dog Person Depression

15931593 views33 comments22 favs

Instead, I get things like, “Why can’t you find a nice man with cancer or a bum leg?”

Speaking to the Dead

15931593 views1515 comments1010 favs

I didn't hear your last words or see your lasteyes. I didn't reach you in time, so I sat by your corpse,silently saying goodbye. I am in that process,not sour, not sweet, that yoked speaking which can't(because the heart won't let it) utter its whisperedlast word, but…

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

15931593 views55 comments33 favs

Buyers of freelance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding slowly, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same way that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.

Sisters

15931593 views55 comments55 favs

What Did We Fight Over?

Flamboozled in the Beak

15931593 views00 comments00 favs

I was looking for an inn to get a cup of calf soup before jacking ribs at the mutton joint. Feng calls, running numbers on an engine zone out in the valley.