Most read stories

maybe just a little too sensitive

15921592 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.

Catch & Release: Dog Person Depression

15921592 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

15921592 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…

O Where Did Our Funny Go?

15921592 views66 comments55 favs

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

Morning People

15921592 views00 comments00 favs

she thinks she looks good in her short red dress, black makeup around her eyes, last night's lipstick a slap of crimson on her cheek. "like this," she says, holding the hammer above her head.

The Code of Hammurabi

15921592 views55 comments55 favs

We pull up chairs. I breathe in her Bath and Body Works vanilla, read her paper slowly and aloud because the ears catch what the eyes miss. Her sentences are awkward, stilted.

Reconstruction

15921592 views88 comments88 favs

My favorite lie is that he'd escaped the South Tower before it collapsed. Smoke inhalation erased his way home. Mine's better than mother's version: a stranger hurled herself onto him. The truth is when they stopped search and rescue, mother told father, Go. Even dead, his…

Poem for Ivor

15921592 views77 comments33 favs

How to capture in word, in song, the fleeting moments of our loveYou were hereAnd now you're goneEven as I used to lie next to you,bathed in the care and concern that emanated from your warm black brown eyes,I knew there would be that day, that you were no moreDestined for…

Epiphenomenal Glider

15921592 views55 comments22 favs

Hissing through the opening, the spirits have no place.

The Show Must Go On

15921592 views55 comments44 favs

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

Artist's Statement: Oracle

15921592 views1515 comments77 favs

Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.

Call the Cultbusters!

15921592 views33 comments22 favs

My twin sister Ilene has recently taken up with a man named “Darrell,” who is a member of the Shriner's Fun Korps, a motorized paramilitary group.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 21

15921592 views77 comments44 favs

Francesco needed a magnifying glass to read her little missives.

Corkscrewing.

15911591 views11 comment22 favs

[SOME PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS.]

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 40

15911591 views88 comments55 favs

—Mazel tov, schmazel tov!

Passage

15911591 views00 comments00 favs

She didn't want to let go of the crumpled tissue she had been holding all this time, as it is wrong to litter, but she finally did, and felt free. Released. Bad. Naughty. Almost orgasmic.

Space Program

15911591 views1212 comments77 favs

Mercury and Gemini disappointed.

Band Names For Sale. Inquire Within

15911591 views77 comments44 favs

Mythical Itch and the Unicorns Working Late Jacuzzi Floozy One Erection Diego Rivera’s Poncho Frieda’s Moustache Avalanche Babushka Dolls Photographic Mammary Drool Sir Gruntsalot Uber Rubber Iota Pie Elder Geese Ladylike Rud

The Favor

15911591 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

On the Roof

15911591 views77 comments66 favs

Marie was on the roof. The deck, with its cool concrete pavers and faded cedar Adirondack chairs, was one of the reasons she and Harold had bought their condo in this building. The only ugly part of the roof was the chain-link fence along its edge; soon after they moved…

Max & Julia

15911591 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...

Five Million Yen: Chapter 43

15911591 views22 comments11 fav

Ben was in no mood for games. His ribs hurt and his eye was painful. He would have to tell this girl, who had flicked her tongue in his ear and who did not sound like Sophie, to get lost

A Scalar Boson a Day

15911591 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.

Genocide City Zone

15911591 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 …

The World Explained

15911591 views55 comments44 favs

This is why the earth revolves around the sun: refrigerator magnets.

boring

15911591 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…

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

15911591 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.

A Few Good Band Names

15911591 views44 comments33 favs

Auto and the Grease-Pits Sugar Cube Full Frontal The Holy Grill Crazy Al and the Squirrels Talk Is Cheap Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cold Zippers Destiny Howl Epiphany Critter Cold Kneecaps Crepes Pulled Pork Baby Seals and the Club

Flamboozled in the Beak

15911591 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.

Painting with Big Mama

15911591 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