Most read stories

Perilous Joy

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...bush tail beside him his closest comfort next to the genes...

The Bludgeoning of a Burgeoning Young Artist

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There was an implicit understanding, made clear by Athena's gentle stroking of Freddy's silky blond hair, that he would share her canopy bed with its frilly fuchsia pillows. He didn't mind this, despite despising the color of the pillows.

Story Story

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It was one of those sweltering afternoons that San Diego endures only several times a summer. I'm riding on El Cajon Boulevard, with my friend John in his old Chevy pickup. John is a lifelong San Diego resident and fanatical Charger backer. He's talking up some…

In Search of Vince’s Quinces

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Beautiful, he thinks, as he taps the ash of his cigarette over the balcony, but this is not good enough.

I Am Quantum

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He had a lean build, except, remarkably, his midsection was perfectly barrel-like. As if he kept an alien lifeform in his belly, cultivated by years of Pabst and Yuengling transfusions.

Query

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time timed times time

Fragment from a Paper Story

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While Leif was still very young, his emotions were very easy to read, for they appeared on his parchment coloured skin, named in his mother's writing. When he was seventeen, Leif fell in love. She was a pretty maid, one of the college servants who kept his…

August

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One moustache hair at moustache level on a filmy bathroom mirror. A red velvet spread on a big round bed. Dear Ma: We saw a bearded lady.

The Girl I Danced With Is Now A Man

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You can't always be everything you were expected to be

Father's Day

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“What do you want for Father's Day?” she asks. “Sex,” he says, his mouth curling at the corners, “and a bottle of Shiraz.” …

Passings

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Perhaps my grandparents, Fred and Lela, when they were growing up....

Angelic

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Remembering his body makes me think of Egyptian cotton sheets dried in the sun. He smelled crisp and clean even after sweating hard. His hair fell in golden spirals down his cheeks, his back, over his forehead, and captured light just like the gilded halos on…

Is This Seat Taken?

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A single woman should regard every train ride as an opportunity, I once read in one of those “How to Find A Boyfriend” books. “When boarding the train, don't take the first available seat,“ the author advised. “Walk through all the cars…

The Bowery Scene (Memoir, 1981; edited by Charlotte Curtis)

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It is easy to look out on the Bowery and say, "There are the bums." Encountering one, however, even one who asks to "bum a quarter" or tells you he's "on the bum" the word "bum" slips away in one's mind...

Prologue - On the Lips of Children

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Their tongues were dry, her milk was gone, and the last bit of water in the plastic jug had evaporated.

Scar

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I stared at these meteor impacts, feeling far away, a lone sentient cloud admiring the scoured yet wondrous earth-of-this-girl below me, the lean slope of her side, the soft dip of her neck, the sharp edge of her cheekbone, the monarch wing of her eyelash

Deus Ex Machina

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He rolls in unbidden across the stubble fields / Old acquaintance astride a newly booming cloud/ Under sky an alien shade of strawberries whipped/ Her watch stops ticking out the rest of her/ scheduled breathing poses

Citadel

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Last night we slept with books in the bed.

55 words #5

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"...,beautiful, yet neutral, an oversimplistic reading of the people we meet."

The Hamsa.... an excerpt

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It is your hamsa that protects us,” the girl whispers to me. “Then I shall give it to you,” I reply. “No,” she says in the unselfish innocence of her youth. “It is yours and you must keep it.” I smile and kiss her dirty forehead. Eternity passes whil

Ranger

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“What. Is. That?” Sid asked, staring at the shaggy ball of fur sitting in the living room. Its tongue hung out of its mouth and its tail beat against the carpet.“This is Ranger,” his mom said. “I don't know what breed he is, but he's a sweetie…

Roger's Box

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"I see flashing bright bacteria floating in the air," he replied, not bothering to think about the words. "I see puffs of smoke issuing from inappropriate objects. Fingertips. Baby carrots. Furniture... Oh, Christ," he seethed, arching again. "Get me some

Packing

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I left Iowa in august when the air was thick and sticky. I had been there three years minus a few days when the boy I'd been sleeping with packed almost everything I owned into my car and waved goodbye. In Baltimore I had few friends and a job teaching English at a…

Taken from 'A Story of Me And You'

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No one commented on her altered appearance, although Will in Accounts said he quite liked her hair like that, so she assumed that no one could see the snakes. But she still felt self-conscious, exposed. She had to remember not to talk to them when she was…

Mankind vs. The Undertaker

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Her boyfriend is into U.S. presidents and professional wrestling. He is reading biographies of both occupations and says this helps him to appreciate gray area, decisive action. Lives of great men, he explains.

Transgressions

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Once you descend, the third rail/ hums its invitation

children

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today on the bus/ a man in his fifties/ smiled at a baby/

sabotage

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people keep trying to get me/ "out of the house"./ they see fun in me, and cool in me,/ and want to spend time with me,/ and i am flattered most sincerely./

M. Nerveux Chronicles: Toad Suffers a Bad Business

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Herr Toad smokin'

Morning and Arachnophobia

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...Rabidosa rabida- no spinner/ of webs but a quick and cunning solitary hunter. Anxiety overwhelmed