Most read stories

Professional Pizza Patter

15651565 views44 comments00 favs

We all stared, somewhat shocked and mostly disgusted.

Love Story

15641564 views1010 comments1111 favs

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

The Hunger of the Waxing Moon

15641564 views11 comment11 fav

I took advantage of a free period this afternoon to nap. When I awoke, I tasted blood. My tongue was swollen. I checked myself in the mirror and saw twin punctures on my lower lip with pinpricks of blood on each. I winked at my reflection and lifted my li

Wait

15641564 views66 comments11 fav

I'm not dying. What is it called if you think you might have Hypochondria but you really don't? I'm worried that's what I have. Is it cold in here? Or is it me, dying?

Dumpster

15641564 views11 comment11 fav

When flash and bang merge you are, according to the manual, in deep do-do.

Unsent

15641564 views55 comments44 favs

this is where we end -- the exorbitant eye of forgotten days.

The Fact of the Matter

15641564 views99 comments77 favs

Jeanne and I were married for eight years. I never knew her.

Gossip

15641564 views1818 comments1616 favs

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…

Dreams Should Come with Buttered Popcorn

15641564 views88 comments88 favs

the brain plays impish tricks/ and entertains itself with avant garde/ home movies

Loose Ends

15641564 views33 comments33 favs

He looked peaceful.

Chapter 27: Prosperity Meteor Showers and the Human Ingenuity Tenders Lasting Economic Recovery Act

15641564 views77 comments55 favs

... the CBO issued a concise and brilliant report demonstrating that the most cost-effective and permanent solution to the multiple problems presented by persistent poverty in the United States was the elimination of all those with prorated household or i

Haiku Life

15641564 views77 comments44 favs

A funny thing this life

A Serial Killer’s First Day in Medical School

15641564 views44 comments11 fav

To rival the professor in his knowledge of various body parts is impossible ...

Saturday TV with Dad

15641564 views88 comments77 favs

By the sixth - Dizz, Falstaff buzzed - Croons - The Wabash Cannonball

One Sick, Two Sick, Red Sick, Blue Sick

15641564 views66 comments55 favs

I found a diseased fish / wedged between some boulders near the pier

Monday Lunch

15641564 views99 comments66 favs

Earlier that morning a tree in the yard had filled with starlings, and on the way home after lunch, the sky held planes that looked like starlings, floating together.

The Real Story Behind The Lipstick On Obama's Shirt

15641564 views66 comments11 fav

The lipstick on your collar walked up the steps and through the front door, without a key. Her smile was hypnotically red and bountiful. The guards standing around didn't dare frisk her for weapons, her lips were weapon enough.

Everything I Need To Know About Aging I Learned From Lilikoi

15631563 views11 comment11 fav

Behold! Passion fruit!Aureolin sun condensedRolls off palm and tongue.Spurn taut rounded skinWait for wrinklesRipeness revealed, resplendent —The pinnacle of worth.

Aurora Borealis

15631563 views99 comments55 favs

I recalled the one night stand I'd had with the girl one balmy summer night in Minneapolis. We lay on my bed in the moonlight, and I touched the nipples of her tiny breasts with the thumb and pinkie of one hand.

Accident Assurance

15631563 views44 comments33 favs

They found your athymic neck/clipped like a bag of Skittles/and your lifeblood left a Rorschach test on the dash/in which they saw the future/and their own exits/(straight ahead and to the right).

Imminent Weather, Five AM

15631563 views1111 comments55 favs

The spectacle of weather/ on the prairies approaches.

The Suicider (draft)

15631563 views00 comments00 favs

He woke up four hours later in his car in his garage with the worst headache of his life. He lurched out of the car and kicked over a basket of basil as he toddled towards the door to the house. He stopped and scooped the spilled basil back into the baske

Question

15631563 views99 comments1010 favs

When the dark shadows of his limp eyes told us life was slowly seeping away, stolen by his stroke, his wife signed the “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” order and, tearfully leaving the room, she turns, asking a final question, “Think a needy family could use his…

Metamorphosis Revisited

15631563 views44 comments33 favs

When I met Gregor Samsa he was still a cockroach, erratic and skittish whenever the light came on. We often spoke in the dark. I empathized with the man. I mean bug. Ok. That isn't fair. You can't call a man a bug because he chirps and eats dried skin cells. A…

Building Houses Out of Words

15631563 views22 comments11 fav

I remember sitting there on the first unfinished rooftop, watching you building houses out of words. You hammered in grammar and punctuation; you said these things needed to be hammered in by hand. You drove the long straight exclamation …

The Head

15631563 views1313 comments44 favs

So I've got this head in a jar and I'm not sure who it belongs to.

Straight to Jimbo

15631563 views88 comments77 favs

...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.

The Continuous Yearning of Walter Rush

15631563 views00 comments00 favs

Every morning when he wakes, he lies in bed and waits for one of his toes to twitch or spasm; the moment he feels one of them thrust forward, he gains courage to test his legs. He grimaces either way: one more day of walking, one more day until loss, one more trip to the…

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

15631563 views33 comments22 favs

#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…

Dignity Village, Portland

15631563 views1111 comments99 favs

A cheap pocket knife was the only sharp I carried in my backpack and they allowed me that. The man with the pot tattoo on his neck said, “All of us here needs some type of knife. You gotta cut up your food. We don't…