Most read stories

What I find

20092009 views1515 comments1111 favs

is every word is a small step takenaway from you that arcs back to me likea mamba's mouth. I'm not going aroundin place so much as running in circles. You can see my devilry here. You arethe truth here and that makes me the lie. You'renew morning. I'm much, much more…

55 words #4

20092009 views1010 comments88 favs

I drink with my thinking problem intact.

Though I'm NEVER Drunk, I'm ALWAYS Disorderly (memoir)

20092009 views1111 comments44 favs

1987. Recently, I told a teenager who was smoking a cigarette in an elevator that he should put it out. “You a cop?” he asked.

55 words

20082008 views1414 comments1313 favs

The patient people who work with the insane are not my kind of people. They are too entertained by the oddness of the inmates and act with a superior sense. I, on the other hand, am odd myself, searching for adherents to my view. The inmates knew me as such and agreed…

Things I Should Have Done - #5

20062006 views2929 comments1212 favs

When I walked into the local police precinct to meet with a detective about the scope of my rights, I was thinking about Rocco, the adored dog of a long-ago life.

Best

20062006 views1010 comments44 favs

Two thousand and two was the worst year for love in the history of sports. People carried their sadness around in wheelbarrows.

Night Wreck

20052005 views44 comments44 favs

You were watching TV when it began. That much is obvious, since you have always watched TV on Thursday nights, and Thursday was when it began for everyone in Polisville. Around 11 PM, a train on its way to a Nevada landfill jumped the tracks. It's a secure landfill, and the…

Four Stories Held Thinly Together With Rage

20052005 views1010 comments77 favs

I. Happy Ending? Why Not! My wife and I got divorced and my little dog died and I decided I'd had enough of Seattle, so I hopped a boat to Belize, and soaked up the sun and gained back some weight and, by God, I got happy again. And I met this cool…

i go to buy folgers coffee & see ninja robots & am okay with it

20052005 views44 comments33 favs

I execute my plan (conceived hours earlier while painting toenails) to go next door to the 7-11 clone and buy some coffee. I am too lazy to walk six blocks to the grocery store. I understand that this is a problem but I will deal with it later I swear. …

Black Lace (a revenge fantasy) 1

20042004 views66 comments22 favs

The stainless steel tiles are cool upon the soles of her feet. Attendants have arranged all of her equipment, both digital and mechanical, including ink and needles. An overhead screen snaps into view, and his young muscled body is revealed.

Down Cellar

20042004 views2323 comments1212 favs

Down cellar, my father showed me where he kept his beer stash. It was in a cubbyhole under the bulkhead, where Mom never thought to look.

On Mondays, Francesca Takes the Stairs

20042004 views2828 comments88 favs

The first flight is effortless

The Accordion

20032003 views44 comments33 favs

If I play my accordion too loudly while you're painting, you complain. You stamp about in your room under mine. You fetch the broom from the closet and use it to thump vehemently on the ceiling. I feel the vibrations through my feet.

Take-Home Quiz

20012001 views44 comments22 favs

1.) Please discuss any real-life problems you may have encountered having to do with the concept of “the look” or “the male gaze” as propounded in some of the feminist criticism readings we've done thus far this semester.

The Freelance Assignment

20002000 views1212 comments1010 favs

You wanted to be a writer. Now you’re a writer.

The Last Words of a Genius

20002000 views22 comments11 fav

The crowd gathered around the dying man's bed, waiting for his last words. He was a genius. The most prolific writer and philosopher to ever live. He wiped his ass with the words of Shakespeare. The thoughts of Plato, Socrates, Descartes, and Nietzsche w

The Death of Tarzan

19991999 views1414 comments88 favs

Martín stood over the slow, labored panting as if it were a mystery he could not explain. The dog lay on the frayed pillow bed, a knot of fur and skin, in his father’s office. One eye, like an almond floating in milk, stared up at the boy.

Phoenix Complaining

19991999 views1212 comments66 favs

I seem to be at a crisis in this cursed writing life of mine[exclamation point] I am too depressed to squeeze another uncannily inspiring observation out of my pert[comma] sassy self[semi-colon] I waiver hysterically between feverish confidence and a pai

I'd Be Happy To Date You When Hell Freezes Over -- One Single Librarian's Collection Of Online Dating Profile Turnoffs

19981998 views1111 comments99 favs

Dude -- I DON'T want to date your boat!

Dr. Nishad

19971997 views1414 comments66 favs

Sometimes she imagined the piles of Dr. Nishad's medical waste at the end of productive day at the hospital. Stacks and heaps of connective tissue, lung matter, gristle and bone, cancerous clumps of tongue and stomach and ropes of bad muscles like wrung,

Tastes like Wind

19961996 views1010 comments88 favs

Sand underfoot.It's raining I say …

The Alchemist

19961996 views1010 comments66 favs

A new constellation in the sweet hereafter.

If Dogs Should Come

19961996 views99 comments55 favs

do not run

The Hole Between Them

19961996 views1212 comments66 favs

Opposite the foothills, on the field's southern edge, was a stand of old eucalyptus trees, each one a gnarled sentry with bark like burnt skin peeling from its trunk.

Po-cash

19961996 views1515 comments77 favs

“Black is up, red is down,” I said, knowing he turned to pleasant memories of lawbreaking when he felt discouraged. I asked him to meet me for coffee. He said he hadn’t bought a coffee in a year.

Great Moments in Blindness

19951995 views2626 comments1818 favs

I am complicit in the darkness

An Italian Lunch (II)

19951995 views4141 comments1212 favs

Within seconds, I strip her free of all that she wears. Her toes are polished the color of plump pink tulips.

pass

19941994 views4545 comments1717 favs

she waits

Scuffle

19931993 views1818 comments1111 favs

Last Christmas Eve, my Nana shot my grandfather in the foot because he wouldn't stop boning the woman up the street.  So on Christmas Eve, after Nana drank a bunch of those baby-sized Miller Hi-life beers, she went upstairs, got her pistol, and said, “I'm gonna…

Poppies

19921992 views00 comments00 favs

I was born upside down, the umbilical cord looped twice around my neck. My mother claimed she was so busy working the swing shift at the hospital that she didn’t even know she was pregnant at first. But I found this hard to believe. Of course she knew. My