Most read stories

Self Inventory

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Life, like a kite string, is slipping out of your hands

My Third First Novel

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One of the publishing industry’s dirty little secrets is that first novels sell much better than second novels. So why not enhance your chances for success by calling your second novel your first?

The Best Kisses

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So I told her think of it this way: you’re my unlived life.

As Poetry Month Ends, Prosaic Types Get Their Turn

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“I’m going,” O’Bannon-Krim says with exasperation as she throws trinkets such as Dylan Thomas beer coozies and Edna St. Vincent Millay hair scrunchies into a cardboard box.

Luce

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Lucy shrugs into the corner of the train's seat. She envelopes her IPod in both hands as if she's praying or holding a conch shell: safe, secure like when she visited a Morcombe beach in the school holidays. The only giveaway's the white headphone cord.

Off the Grid

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The slicing is easy. Blade barely touching skin, flesh separating into two clean parts. A breath, and blood fills in the space, an old friend materializing in the shadows. I am redolent with hope and desire. I can't stop thinking of how he excised himself from my…

So long

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Years later he surveys this place again to post something, anything. He plays "sex on fire," sounds that once fueled him. Now he knows the song is about VD, not unbridled potency. Names and words all seem at once familiar and numbing and noise. He once wanted fame or…

A Change in Plan

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Times were tough back then. Just a few jobs. This was in the late thirties. It's the story of how Albert hooked up with Iris. Their unlikely meeting took place when they met out on the Highway 61 right-of-way just outside of Natchez, Mississippi, each trying to hitch…

Love apathy

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I smell it, it smells/Of giggles and leg shaking

The Lookout

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I had never seen anyone die. For first time in my life, I was afraid, even more than when my step-dad got drunk and roughed me up. When Dale Franklin got shot last year standing on the corner outside the laundry-mat it took the ambulance forty-five minu

The Coward

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George was the biggest coward alive. But he was too afraid to admit it. But that therein was his cowardice. He couldn't face the truth. He couldn't face his weakness. It made him uncomfortable, the thought that he might need to change.

Peggy Guggenheim Visits an Operation

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To pay the bill.

Osama, Osama--He's After Your Mama!

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Captain Zeep came to Earth at last century's end to help pave the way for a Zorkian takeover by 2012 at the latest. Key to the game plan: Earthlings had to get dumber than eggplants. When George Bush stole the White House, Zeep figured, Bingo, dumb…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 15

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The Fourth Defenestration took place in September of that year, and it became an instant internet sensation. Mostly because of the fall from great heights into an enormous pile of haufen mist, arranged by a bunch of henchmen pals of Boris and Vladimir

Burger King Blues

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Read signs sometimes and you just might get where you're trying to go. When Eddie suggested they stop for a Whopper, Dennis said no. "Fuck Burger King, man. Let's get that Wendy's up there." They got…

If You Want To Work At Club Arseni

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I hev my girls shave.

Ode to Flannery O'Connor

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Gert sat in the car and wiped at the inside of the window while the defroster blasted at full strength. The shards and slivers of ice that networked across the windshield were just thick enough to hinder visibility. Bane wrenched the door open and shoved

Diarrhetic Discharge (w/Edgar Allan Poe)

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That Orndoff! I'd like to shove that pipe of his up his arse.

Strangeness

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The goose on the roof isn’t aware it is doing anything odd...

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 11

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Many weddings took place at the foot of the Astronomical Clock Tower. One every hour, on the hour. It turned out these were set-up photo shoots for things like men’s cologne, brocade bridal gowns, and smoked carp. At night we wandered around the many

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 15

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—Jesus, a snoring cat. No wonder Alex put this cat outside.

Privileged

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I could hide away in this tower But I am Rapunzel And I will let down my hair

Canción: Oh...Marcy Marcy Me! / milonger-milonga

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Aquél que no ve brillar una escalera de Luz surgiendo de la piel de la tormenta, es que se esconde de miedo al pensarse inpermeable a su belleza...Mas luego lavará su rostro reflejandose en los charcos...o hará siembra de sus pasos al caminar por la hierba.De negro se viste…

STIFF NOW! The Early Embalming Craze Sweeping the Nation!

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Originally designed for para-morticians and pre-professional undertakers, the Protocol has now been certified and approved for over-the-counter purchase and is completely safe (check local regulations for sales to minors: not approved for veterinary use).

Arcana Magi Zero Arc 2 - c.2

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Alysia and Megumi made their magic circles, but they stopped short when they saw a young man at the end of the street. Their eyes trembled and their feet moved them back without thought.

just not working

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some days you wake up/ to feel horror/ wrapped beneath your blanket./

Beverly Abbey

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Downton Abbey and The Beverly Hillbillies. They're practically the same show.

You Don't Listen

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What time is it? 3:47. Adam says before 5 is too early. Maybe he should stay home with our daughters once in a while. Let’s see him make it to 5 o’clock. It is Friday. I’ll mix it with orange juice. He never notices. I better check on Debra.

Caucasus

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On shingle of seashells & Bullet shells, Ghosts drift along the shore Of the Black Sea.

Hey! Where? Georgie Girl!

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Starry, Starry Night we slept, talked and did the nasty where I, in innocence once built a raft of driftwood to take me twenty miles across to the shore from which we ferried escaping my Father’s demise