Most read stories

The Dog

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The dog is reading. This morning, as every morning, the book is open in front of him. Well before his master's rise, he had already read the moon then dawn and the clouds. Now the slippers, these that walk here and there. Followed by coffee and the pages that turn. A little…

Vampires Suck

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The little clapboard church sits stiffly in the sun. It's steeple marking time with it's shadow on the sidewalk. It is the last place most people would think to look for a vampire, but I am sure that one is in there. Contrary to popular opinion, there

Losing It

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The following is a true story, or rather it is a true experience from the story of my life. Some say that just because something happens doesn't really make it "true".

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.

Her Man in the Navy Blues

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In that time when the trunk was getting cleared out and when it became only the empty shell of what had once been so important, many things hit the match. She burned an old black negligee, a picture competing with the likes of a Vargas girl and other thin

Four from “Autobiographies”

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The white space beckons-/ a blank wall in a decrepit neighborhood-/ wishing to be decorated or defiled

Waiting for Fireworks

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I take her hand. More grey dust rolls off the arms, over the railing, into the wind. It’s embarrassing and I let go. I think she told me to throw them away months ago. I rub her bare thigh. She laughs real soft like. The corner of her lip curls up.

Intractable

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~ ! ~

You May Telephone From Here

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There's something in the space youare tonight that's for me asweet presence in my own life,and so like any othercoward I write a poemin vain. It will never beseen as itself by you, butpossibly be mistakenfor an open window. Somewill definitely call itfurniture, some will…

Men and Babies

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"Mama skipped the training bras and just gave me her old bras. I'll be 25 before I can wear her old bras..."

Dancing With the Monster

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It comes to me at night, the monster. I don't even realize it's in the room until I hear it breathing behind me. It reaches out its hands and places them on my shoulders. Its fingers are furry and soft, but strong. They grasp the muscles on either side of my neck, and I…

The Boyfriend

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As a boyfriend, he knows that such A.D.D. insensitivity could be considered a major liability in the eyes of most girlfriends, including his.

The Listener

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They think because you are a writer you are not much of a listener and so you begin to recognize all of the great opportunities to be much more of a listener and then you shut your trap and get sucked into the whorls of her big wet brown eyes with Italianate…

Mauthausen

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I was feeling a bit introspective. I was busy in my own mind assembling the history of the place and getting ready for the visit. I was naturally not someone who would cluster up with a bunch of people I had just met and had arrived to participate in this

Blow Me

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[BEEZLEBUB SAYS, "GO!"]

Sick Day

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Marcy was not herself today, her mother said when the school called. She was under the weather and she could not play with the other children. Marcy's mother began to suspect that her daughter was not herself very early on that day. Walking up the stairs Dolores…

Ritual

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The dance draws deeper whirling witches weaving rhymes The fire spits fierce in the falling rain soon the spell will spill from secret times

The Two Stairways

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She remembered how cold it was in the factory that day. A few of the high windows stood open as usual, necessary for ventilation when the machines were all running, when the concrete floors were packed with the sweating bodies of warm human workers. The

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…

Noises

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Another noise, softer than the first: swish, thud. You are still. The house is very loud tonight.

things to know about the people parked along the road that runs though Humboldt Park: part 19

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And he was wearing a mask. Gorilla mask over his gorilla face.

Archaeology

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I would like to go back (with spade, pick, soft bristles), and sift through time and layers, brush away the intervening years, and find: the tooth, knocked out by my then best friend, when we were seven, careening downhill in my father's wheelbarrow on Boscobel…

Unibrow: A Confessional

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I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with "unibrow" except Tsing Tao, which is a brand of Chinese beer....

Friday Briefings

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They could occupy the space// left by creatures larger and more/ evolved.

Darker

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The moon poured more/ light into the sky/ yet we kept on talking

Skin and Bones

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She lay there, skin and bones, unable to speak. Little did we know those were our last moments togethter. How cruel for her, to want to share a lifetime of thoughts and feelings in those waning moments only to be robbed of the chance. My brother and I…

Snarket

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Shit, I guess I'm gonna hafta

Trash Burning, 1976

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This time the bag's bigger/than the boy and the door.

various verses

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in a willow garden lush shade/drapes dark the young woman's small house/with the lone window, the white door . . .

Doing Time Outside (novel excerpt)

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If you are a family member or friend of a person incarcerated in a correctional facility...