Most read stories

Eulogy

14371437 views22 comments11 fav

In one hand she cradles a cigarette, in the other a glass of red wine. Typically neither of these things would be allowed in here, and on this occasion it was thought that it would be better to let her do what she wanted.

A Study in Plastics

14371437 views55 comments00 favs

She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

After all

14371437 views55 comments33 favs

The questions piled up so high I thought I'd neverget through the door.The ease of alcohol, the incline of submission. Guttural sounds and spittle.Wipe down the morning afterwith a shower.Redress in last night's clothes.There's coffee if you want it.Sincerity too -no,…

Snoopy Calling

14371437 views11 comment00 favs

The little girl picked up the toy phone. "Who is this please?" she said, mimicking what she'd heard her mother say many times before. "Snoopy," came the voice.

Kandie Contretemps

14371437 views44 comments22 favs

She sat in a tall chair and there was only one time in the interview that she took her sunglasses off. She didn't really take them off, but just pulled them down for an instant with thumb and forefinger in order to look out at something going past the window. They said…

The Floating Dock

14361436 views11 comment11 fav

Charley carried the corpse over to the dinghy and tossed it into the pool of rain water collected inside. The headless snake swerved through the water, oblivious to its fate, powered perhaps by exposed nerves and muscle memory.

Autobiography 22: It’s Not Just the Income

14361436 views1111 comments66 favs

Unless they leave you comatose,/ it’s the disasters you remember.

"they call me the midnight gambler"

14361436 views22 comments22 favs

That night I came as close to getting laid as I had ever come in my life, without actually getting laid, after two and a half hours of intense petting, begging her to go down in the front seat of my car, with her asking: Why? Why, Jerry? Why? That was a

Face to Face

14361436 views1010 comments66 favs

The face had become a chilling death mask.

WikiGreen (a semi-found poem)

14361436 views11 comment11 fav

Green is the color of emeralds, jade, and growing grass. In the continuum of colors of visible light it is located between yellow and blue. Green is the color mostShades of green desireIn the Category: Shades of green Green politics meet…

Empty Pockets

14361436 views11 comment11 fav

We dance on rooftop, then I fall off.You're like, "oh shit."Pale blue lobster finds me. Says, "hello." Taps me with claw, "wake up." Looks around, concerned. Shakes me with two claws on collar.Scuttles away for a second.Comes back with warm, perfect, round glazed doughnut.…

Lola

14361436 views33 comments11 fav

I know you through the rich dark brown soilcrumbling in my fingers like chocolate cake.I imagine you nurtured bell-shaped papayas,coaxing their smooth, leathery skinfrom green to yellow,while mangoes, the colors of the island sunset,hung with their tantalizing sweet…

Every Headache

14361436 views22 comments00 favs

It’s possible that you’re dying. Every headache a brain tumor, your friend once said. You laughed then. Now you begin to see what he meant.

Passing a Church

14361436 views33 comments55 favs

Does God feel the same way / whenever you practice your indifference toward me

In The Place Between - Conclusion

14361436 views00 comments00 favs

You know what happened. You heard about it. We were considered unuseful to the Nazis and were gassed in those shower rooms. It was all over so quick; I had hardly a chance to understand. I really did not feel anything because before it was over, I, being

wintering

14361436 views22 comments22 favs

a name is what you are, and a name is a wall between. one day let me be earth, so you may be allowed to say you love me. for now i am separate. i'm afraid that's how i will die, and …

CHAIN

14361436 views33 comments11 fav

I awake to find a heavy chain shackled around my ankle. I try to remove it but cannot. The length of the chain runs through my apartment, sometimes coiling around itself, but eventually leading out my front door.

The Catch

14361436 views33 comments33 favs

His granddaughter, Ivy, sat on his knee looking at an old photo album she found under the couch during one of her afternoon explorations. She made him wipe off the dust and cobwebs before he took her through all the pictures, per normal protocol. The albu

In the Air Tonight

14361436 views44 comments00 favs

But that last night in Europe, getting ready to fly out of Amsterdam back to the States, I heard this Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” which expressed some of the turmoil and confusion and whole-life hysteria I was feeling inside. Waves of fru

Luminous Nights, 7

14351435 views00 comments00 favs

Robbie took me out to Fox River on his father's ski boat one day, as he often did — but this time it was my eighteenth birthday. That was when he opened up his robe and showed me all there was to show of himself, begging me to make love to him, saying h

the hunt

14351435 views77 comments55 favs

.

The Thrill of a Lifetime

14351435 views00 comments00 favs

I honestly can’t say, with Lynda, who cheated first. More than likely Lynda did, because I know she was pregnant when I came home from college for the summer (this was 1963) and we had to go out and find a doctor who would give her some pills to get rid

Joe and the Spiderman

14351435 views44 comments44 favs

Once upon a time I sat in summer chairs beside cool vine walls. This was in a borough east of the major city, where families gathered in seasonal joy, by blooms fragrant, to worship the summer and its might. There is nothing diminutive about the world when one is…

I Don't Know Why I Bother With You

14351435 views22 comments33 favs

I think we had parties with cats before— you were Mr. Gallant, and I Madame Sunshine—we would drink tea laced with toilet spray, and you would complain:…

Exoskeletal

14351435 views33 comments22 favs

Tell you what, if people only knew what the buggo does to your insides before it shellacs your outsides they'd think twice before dancing. And guys like us, we'd get parades. Guys like us, oof-oof! Im-mune to romance.

Jonestown on a Global Scale

14351435 views88 comments55 favs

Picture it-/ air not clogged with the shit// that makes Beijing the dark joke/ of the developed world.

visionary

14351435 views1212 comments1010 favs

let it lie

The Generic Poem

14351435 views22 comments22 favs

I’m just your ordinary poem,

(give me a real moment with a living god and I’ll go all the way)

14351435 views1010 comments55 favs

I remember, when I was selling real estate, how you could always tell when there'd been a divorce. One room was conspicuously left emptied of its contents, and these rooms were never swept or tidied. Instead they were left just as they were when the par

Complex

14351435 views22 comments22 favs

He sees the dogs through the window, his babies, sleeping on opposite ends of the couch. His girl, lying supine, hind legs spread, grotesquely, almost comically, as far as they can without being flush with the cushion. His boy, Cosmo, face down, the power…