Most read stories

Elevator to the Angels

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I opened the closet door and there stood Eugène Ionesco lost among our clothes.

Flutter in Night

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Have you heard this yet? The daughter flew home to care for the mother, whose pump is still tick ticking—though now with aid—which means she leaves the kitchen when the microwave clicks on.

The Judge's Wife Part 9

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Suddenly something clicked.

It is Midnight

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It is midnight in Utah, but I can’t tell. It always looks like midnight in a cave.

My Name is Luka

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The first and easiest reason was that he never hit me. Well, if he never hit me, then how could it possibly be abuse? Never mind the threats to stab me in the neck. He was only angry. He really didn't mean that. Never mind he restrained me, or cornered me

A Requiem For The Heavyweights

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Breathe a stench of Eton musk...

A Break in the Cloud

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Each had jostled and laboured for his or her place upon the blunt outcrop, in the cold persistent darkness, where the outcrop was merely something that had fallen and not quite been washed away.

Across US Sullen Teens Dump Family for Olive Garden

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"That zit on your forehead just won't go away, will it, sweetie?" she adds as she brushes her daughter's bangs downward.

Hope's Amanuensis

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I was low on carburetor / oxygen and my fraud protection / had just expired.

Sheep

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Sheep are very philosophical, I hear. Stop this hopeless dreaming.

Love Story

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I fall in love with a second cousin at the picnic. I make sure I sit next to her.

About The Author

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Gnarly Berger was born in a guitar case in Istanbul. His mother was an Iranian singer from Israel accompanied by a Turkish santur player & a French guitarist (Gnarly's biological father) and into whose guitar case Gnarly entered this world, somewhat by accident,…

Independence Day

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It’s Independence Day. But I’m not feeling independent.

What Keeps Us Awake

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On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…

Legs Unwilling

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Summer bakes the metal playground slide to ripples. Still, kids line up. Sadists, all of them. Lucky enough to choose pain. Max feels it every breath, unwanted.

Confinement

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Even music relies on what/ you know as music/ for its power to enthrall.

To an Overly Helpful Husband of Advanced Age

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in which a man who is bored with years of retirement poses a threat to himself and others

on the shore on the shore

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I await, here at Sandymount Strand / There's a stony bed and moistened sand / Couples dance away into futurity / With their dogs upon the shore

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 34

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—Now that’s a hell-of-a-painting, Frank, he said. Those colors are engaged in warfare. How the hell did you do that?

Imported Beers of the Romantic Poets

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She burps in beauty, like a frog Who sits on lily pad so green, Resounding nightly in his bog But to my eyes unseen.

Gossip

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Gossip Betty Martini divorces husbands when they least expect it. On a seeming whim, she pays a visit to dear Arnold, who keeps her papers handy in his top desk drawer. She initials here and there, signs with a…

Beachcomber's dirge

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...clash of gulls wend upwards, disappearing into grey night's high tide recedes

Straight to Jimbo

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...coming into that bone yard, you just hang a right, go on past La Fontaine, and take a left a bit further on. Jimbo's right up in there.

Ten Books That Have Stuck with Me Off the Top of My Head as I Make Them Up, #2

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#2 The Typewriter Inside You by Harmon Gentle—I found this one at a garage sale when I was 15. Intended as a manual for sharpening one's typing skills, by the third chapter it became obvious that Mr. Gentle's sanity had slipped, and that rather than mastering the…

Loved, Stupid

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I want to be adored for something and chose poetry to be that something adored for. But Annie doesn’t see why anyone would ever choose anything over love.

Comic Superhero

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Andrew had learned the art of being a chameleon at school where his school uniform provided an exoskeleton. Beneath was no costume, just the fragile skin of adolescent ego.

How To Laugh and Be Happy When Not Drinking

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That is the question, not to be or not to be Life, death, whether to be, all that is superfluous in the face of laughter and how to achieve it under extraordinary circumstances like not drinking anymore I’m afraid not all the alcoh

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.6 - c.3

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Mother’s eyes stared outward in a trance, on her throne, visualizing the world Azure made. Though it was right before her, she could not reach it.

Henny Penny On Why She Crossed the Road

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Ok, ok, people are forever asking me, so why did I cross the frickin’ road? Dumb-shit me, of course. Consequences waaay unforseen.

A THOUSAND PARROTS

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  The parrots woke Eddie up. That and Rocker snoring in the twin bed. A thousand parrots flying over the motel? They squawked, God how they…