Most read stories

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!"

Open Wounds

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Where the skin had grazed, shredded by the coarse gravel to form scabs, fascinated Jack. It reminded him of his youth and his own grazes, scratches and stitches. As a boy he imagined scabs were rough foundations of igneous rock, blood like lava pouring th

5 Things I've Learned After 5 Years of Reviewing Small Press Books and Writing 2 of My Own

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In today’s print-on-demand and digital world, there are unlimited avenues for aspiring writers to circulate their work, but deregulation and limitlessness often leads to chaos. Writers are more inclined to release unpolished work that fails to rise to the

Frothing At the Fountain

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When I came back from California the second time, in the summer of 1965, I was the first around our town to wear my hair long, influenced by the Beatles. And I bought a bunch of blue caps that everyone in our gang wore, with the number “69” sown on

Substitution

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

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,

Inmate Words

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in White Heat there’s a character who reads lips using a mirror to see the mouths of prisoners in other cells that’s how I feel when I talk with you

Laughing All The Way To The 2020 Election

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After President Trump was elected, my first impulse was to spend the next four years cowering under the bed, whimpering.While I knew that I needed to keep track of what our new commander in chief was up to, watching the news made me too angry and too sad and just too…

The Centre of the Universe

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"Look Emily, I’m charging your solar powered calculator and helping you relieve your dependence on foreign oil."

Snow

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She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

Misunderstood, Meet Cynical.

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The blaring scream from my alarm clock suffices as my wake-up call. It disrupts me from my dream state that I so rarely get the privilege to experience any more. I've always loathed that alarm clock, so I turn it off in the most sensibly aggressive manner I know how: just…

Tongues

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I feel his hand on my face, feel it brush past my lips, and I taste my sister's blood.

~switches and shade~

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  mis-placed       the change           she goes looking for.        her folks        missed another hour...          her worth-while spent wasting        the voice wouldn’t leave the leaves alone.

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…

Settled

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Zusman snored on the sofa as Motel gathered his belongings in the dark. He moved quietly as had become his custom in the mornings. Initially he had tried not to wake his nephew on his way to work in the…

Tumblring

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most interesting, i investigate all of this at 1:15 on a thursday morning and consistently contradict my assumptions while simultaneously validating them.

Carrying you

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I woke up to the humming of an empty space in the shape of a sweatshirt,

Reprisal

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Reprisal The bomb blew away hubris, shocked the arrogant bastards into humiliated silence. None of them had experienced hunger and they'd misjudged its effect. In the lobby of the palace, dirt, plaster, glass shifted, rumbled,…

Bedtime Stories

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I want to read a story that ends unhappily ever after: one where the bad guy wins and no one gets the girl.

After the Flood

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That TV you got me? Ruined. And the ionizer fan? Ruined too. All your clothes you left over here, all my work scrubs and weekend dresses too, soaked with that river stink water. I kept thinking bout all the dead creatures.

Osama Retires

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Osama couldn’t see any reason he shouldn’t retire. No way he could top BP Oil in the Gulf or Pacific Gas & Electric in San Bruno.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 12

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Ellen and I stepped out into the hall to discuss the situation. Maybe we should make some sort of offer to purchase these paintings, because if it did turn out that they were for real, well, the value could be endless. Think of it. Vladimir Lenin, the pai

The Sound Of...

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What if Everything I have been doing Hasn’t been heard By anyone?

The Bird Nests of Lascaux

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With their brightly-colored bits of found string woven into the walls of their nests to teach their baby birds what the worms of the future will look like. Somewhat like the cave paintings of Lascaux for early man in France, when hunti

The Note

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... “All power is just behind your belly. Look. Knot of belt – just in front of navel – navel is eye of chi.” ...

Postcard from Shambhala

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Dearest Z— There is no way to describe this place. It is a pendulum, caught at mid-swing or maybe just a millimeter on the up side. It is a sense of sweeping, a cleanness. Distant clouds remind me of the day we took the train and the mountains acted petulantly,…

Spittoon (w.c.55)

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“I’m pregnant,” he says...

Sorry, Charlie

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Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

ANALOG

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We’re going to talk about our future like the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. Like there are 40 great songs this week about our future.

The Monday Wednesday Friday War

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Ginny, the mother, was a lark in every respect of the word. Born and raised in central California farm country, to a family of lower middle class means, educated in public schools in whose bathroom stalls she was deflowered as unceremoniously as a pig ta