Most read stories

Apathy.

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I'm not sure whetherI drink to numbthe pain or toactually feelsomething.

Imagining the Reading as Effacement

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What the spaces say// can be heard in the short/ and longer silences

Sunday Morning Series- 7: Sunday Morning Trifurcation

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Go diddle in the sand// to save some other sinner/ a death of stones.

Dark-Thirty

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The smell of garlic, soy, and onions/ exhausted from Skillman Wok/ perfumes December air.

Unspoken

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I'm waiting for your voice. My trembling hand is so damp the phone could slip from my fragile grasp at any moment. Each ring burns in my ear and makes the washing machine in my stomach tumble faster and faster. After three rings, or it could be four, or forty, I hear…

In an Unfamiliar Restaurant.

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I find myself in an unfamiliar restaurant, its cuisine an uncomfortable pastiche of Croatian, Burmese, Jamaican and leftovers of long ago Sunday dinners in a small New England town.

Another Ending

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you tell a stranger's story...

Divers

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and, once in a rare while,/ actual pearls.

Another Way

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If there was another way to describe emptiness, I'd word the endlessness of the sky, of the ocean at low tide.

What my daughter knows I know or some likely version

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He doesn't call, not even on her birthday. She doesn't mention it or complain. She knows she doesn't have it as bad as some, even in this privileged Triangle of North Carolina. She is white and pretty and belongs to what's left of the middle…

Troy

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It’s layer VII we adore/ and mourn

Trial Separation

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"You're no good at sex, no good at drugs and, god knows, no good at rock and roll."

Joe's Sniff Shack

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Joe's, always smelling of cherry chapstick or the breeze that comes up from subway grates, used to service some of the finest dupes in town.

How Things Fall Apart

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The leaves/ seek reunion with the ground// and leave the oak tree naked/ in December’s cold.

No Flowers in June

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Of flowers there Are none In June No sun Upon my cheek The gentle breeze Stirs me not The smiles They cloud my vision Birds they Sing their songs But I hear Them not When tears Rain down My heaven.

Rock and Sushi

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If I remember him at all it’s because I decided not to flunk him so he could graduate. I had this theory that teachers should be bound by the same oath as doctors, First, do no harm.

Let Us Meet In The Afternoon

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You are Day I am Night Let us Meet In the Afternoon And…

Purpose

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I gave you two daughters. I gave you four grandchildren. I'm done.

The Instrument

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She wore no bra. As she jammed the truck into park and pushed against the heavy door, he saw the points of her nipples against her dress. Ice filled his belly, the most beautiful pink-colored ice.

How We Fight

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HORDES OF MEN desolated, struck down, destroyed, sunken form of skin and skeleton, bare cloth matted to torso, bodycage and hipbone, face and neck darkened, bloating to black, rain the endless dream stuck fast in the stone-dead skull and blood a fine sheen over all,…

The Gift

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This was the anniversary of the chairs. He would celebrate tonight for the chairs, and the chairs would welcome him.

Somebody Loves You

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When I look at the picture on my refrigerator, I always think the same thing: "Hitler was a baby once too, look how well he turned out."

Vesper

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. . . how a body calls in the dark. . .

The Cherry

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He then spent his walk home to his single apartment spitting up various textures of red, combinations of cherry and blood mostly.

Not So Thoughtful After All

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She put the Necco wafer on Sally's tongue."You can't be the priest, Emma" Sally said nearly choking on the hard, chalky disk."Then why you on yaw knees stupid?""You said to be prayin' and like in church, but you can't be doin' priest stuff. That's for…

Old Shoes for Stranded Soles

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There are stranded people just like us, that's Not necessarily what I'm looking for. Negativity won't pull us through the Barbed-wire halls of hate. And even if I Was the only one, I wouldn't want you To look any different in the mirror. I'm older …

Maggie

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But she didn't. It would have been no historical anomaly if she had, by the way. She played with the world like it was a toy. Sometimes I wondered if I'd wake up in a box, a victim of live internment, and scream only to be humiliated later by her laughter

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.

Linear A

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let’s press our words into the clay/ in language so completely dead/ we have to re-imagine it.

Good Belongs to You

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I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…