Most read stories

Florida

19761976 views3939 comments1515 favs

In her paper, Emmeline compares Mary Todd Lincoln's crazy, which involved spending lots of money and going to séances, with her Aunt Janine's, which involves wearing cowgirl outfits and running with strange men.

Phoenix Complaining

19751975 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

Down Cellar

19751975 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.

Black Lace (a revenge fantasy) 1

19741974 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.

An Italian Lunch (II)

19741974 views4141 comments1212 favs

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

Po-cash

19741974 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.

Night Wreck

19731973 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…

Best

19731973 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.

On Mondays, Francesca Takes the Stairs

19731973 views2828 comments88 favs

The first flight is effortless

Bread

19721972 views4343 comments2121 favs

Zach lifts his glass. “Look at us! We eat like kings. Kings!”

More Child Fear

19711971 views2121 comments88 favs

Women with tremulous breasts. Going down the swimming pool drain.

The Adventures of Tequila Kitty: Chapter One - by Christopher Chik

19701970 views22 comments11 fav

That’s how I’d met him really: drinking games. We’d both been at the local watering hole, challenging the other patrons to drunken games of chance and making a clean sweep of it. A few guys figured themselves for alpha dogs had Teqs cornered after he’d ta

Scuffle

19701970 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…

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

19691969 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. …

The Longfellow Bridge Diaries: Part 2

19681968 views22 comments22 favs

They sway from his hips, the torn knapsack, and the corners of the pushcart

Four Stories Held Thinly Together With Rage

19681968 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…

Dr. Nishad

19681968 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,

What I find

19671967 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…

Things I Should Have Done - #5

19671967 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.

The Last Words of a Genius

19661966 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

New York, New York

19661966 views3434 comments1515 favs

The city's hung in flashlights.

The Accordion

19661966 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.

One Poem, Eight Rejections

19651965 views2525 comments1515 favs

Do you suppose you could make your female protagonist a salamander rather than a human?

The Thing on the Stair

19641964 views66 comments44 favs

Autumn brings It

Poppies

19641964 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

Betty Superman

19641964 views99 comments66 favs

No, I just liked what it said "All at Once Is What Eternity Is" which seemed right to my seventeen year old mind, explained it all to me the way nothing else did. I matted the poster in art class and put it in a frame over my bed. Betty hated the poster.

The Death of Tarzan

19641964 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.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

19641964 views2222 comments1212 favs

Then it got quiet again, the kind of quiet that fills a car even with the radio on and the highway ticking away and the corn flying past regimented and silk tasseled.

Tastes like Wind

19631963 views1010 comments88 favs

Sand underfoot.It's raining I say …

Whatever Happens

19631963 views99 comments1010 favs

When Matthew calls I'm sautéing garlic for the polenta and Joe is squeezing buttercream rosettes from a Ziploc bag onto a spice cake he made from scratch. Or trying to—we…