Most read stories

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.

I Dated A 50 Foot Woman

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There was no need to drive. She could travel ten miles in ten minutes. She merely had to be careful not to step on any cars or trucks.

Poem in A Dead Language Only I Understand, Translated for You

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I used to be a poet, you know. / Better, in many respects, than you.

Substitution

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Once there was a man who wrote in code. He was comfortable among substitutions

16 Rules to help you become a Writer

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Get comfortable with criticism

Myself Today

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Suddenly I'm not feeling it anymore. / Poetry has become insufficient. / I can't do it like I used to.

The Washing of the Quilts

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Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

The Greatest Science Fiction Story Ever Told

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“Apollo twenty-two. Come in.”, the voice crackled through the speakers of the aircraft. There was only silence broken by a solitary meow and the slight whistle of oxygenated air through the ventilation system. “Captain Snuggles, now that you…

Chair and Umbrella, $25

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If white t-shirts are only an SPF of 8, she couldn’t even imagine what a white nylon-mesh umbrella on this godforsaken beach might be in terms of protection.

Illinois Route 3

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If this road could answer I would ask her what it is like to follow the path of the rippleshimmery river for too many miles through the slowly ghosting towns and the corncovered landscapes of the dying Midwest

Trajectory

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Soon the world is on film that is burning.

Vanishing Point

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the two become one where/ all things end,

On Clearance

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She clutched her fat rolls and tugged on a pant leg. "I'm so embarrassed! You caught me on a bad day!"

You Don't Need To

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You need only one who notices.

FWA (Fiction Writers Anonymous)

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Sebastian and Janice had been a natural match. They sought to deny this at first because a recovery assistance program was not a place to forge intimate relationships. It worked out wonderfully in Hollywood, but Hollywood, as everyone knew, was just a facade. So…

Seeing Me

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I got to see me the other day.

Have You Seen Me?

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It’s as she reaches into the fridge for the carton of half-and-half with the grainy waxy photo of the little girl—Last Seen 10/2/06—that the memory surfaces: “Hey. That’s mine.”

Sinking to the beat

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I'd wear my pajamas too, fitting for the big sleep

Love's Hinterlands

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Sit down at night and stare into the fire. Consider if Cupid is just another liar.

No Good Hubcaps - song

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I got no good hubcaps My van is up on bricks It's held together with duct tape And a couple of crummy sticks I caught the guy who did this And tied him to a tree I kicked him in the windpipe And kicked him in the knee I'm a man witho

Ichthyology

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The doctors said, when she was born, that the gills would eventually fade away on their own. Nothing to fear, they said; no more unusual than the rare child born with a tail, or a dense pelt of fur, or a single sharp tooth jutting from its new pink gums.

I Wish This Was Fiction

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The convalescent home's common areas are surprisingly well-appointed, given the neighborhood, which makes his actual living quarters that much more dismaying. Poorly lit, dusty, stifling, the room reeks of socks worn for weeks on end. My nostrils burn, and my eyes…

Flash Gordon in Iowa

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I will show you how, in the spring, the sidewalks here look like a crossword puzzle resting under a glass of lemonade,

Augustine

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You stretch my heart / in sacred ways

a good ending

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It's twilight

Dread and Circuses

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It is claimed we choose/ conditions of our servitude.

Event Particle (9)

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leaves, starlings and other words fall into thickets of orange or green grasses or tendrils or snakes

Girl in 'Nam (Part 2)

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A life in NYC was one I always dreamed of but I found myself turning into a bitter, sarcastic person who was losing the ability to see the silver lining in just about anything.

Lovelandtown Tavern

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James Hubert III sat at the bar. It was late. His wife and kids were long in bed and he knew he should be, too. But with the Lovelandtown lift bridge stuck in mid-air, a drink beckoned him. He sat next to Vince DeSantos, a small, stout man, with a bowling

My Uncle's Last Day in Hospice

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In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …