Most read stories

Head Holding

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"...a head dizzy from my abuse."

philanthropy from a cardboard box + a detour to Han-shan

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philanthropy corrugated with a smirk / printed aside every cardboard box and room / every cardboard house with every cardboard door.

our notorious youth

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Be aware the dog is king, radiant, emitting many beams, renewed by and restored by his fullness, his satiety. In many ways underlying all our hearts and minds, out of our notorious youth, ever the flower of our flesh on fire like a little reed next to the dried…

Betsy

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Lester walked back into the house. He was hungry but didn’t know what he wanted to eat. Really, he couldn’t remember how to fix anything he wanted. He walked over to turn on the television, but couldn’t find the on/off button. Surely the damn thing had an

Blue Crabs

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The perfect murder, and it’s not even murder.

In the Air Tonight

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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

Various War Stories

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War Stories #1The Germans didn't like that theJews had such beautiful women.War Stories#2There must have been a war between the good witches and the bad witches. It's the only thing that would account for such troubling times.Woman With Yellow HatWhy did…

Get a Hold of God, Will You?

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Get a Hold of God Get a hold of God, will you? I have seen a lot I saw a Great Dane licking the dew off an orange bird of paradise Get a hold of God and tell him that Get a hold of God and give him a piece of my m

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.7 - c.4

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Mayumi flicked her hand, making her circle deflect the spell. She picked up speed and her hand grabbed Emi.

Path

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a man sees salamander bands / a-cracklin on the scree

The Beautiful Mercedes

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The screen door slowly opened. I was expecting the second / coming of perfection.

A Tangled Web of Likes

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Liking up with the Joneses...

The Judge's Wife Part 8

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—You're convinced I'm crazy. I'm convinced you're incompetent.

In Real Life

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I’m starting to feel more interested in my savings account.

Friday Out

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Seeing her in black / with his arm around her / from the other side / of a glass door. / He gave her a beer. / She might’ve been thirsty, / uncomfortable.

Advice To A Young Poet

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Touch these words with your mind. They will create an elephant with an unidentifiable itch.

Grandfather Clock

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On a cold November afternoon I stood in the foyer of Sampson and Sons funeral home and paced silently back and forth across the purple carpet. They have that deep pile and rich color of carpeting that you only really see in a small town…

Salzburg

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One night while in rehab I had a dream that I worked as a violin maker in Salzburg.

Buck, naked

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Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

Ways and Means

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the bodies of the poor become/ a simple logistical problem,/ disposable as any gnawed bones

Almost There

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On the phone I asked my mother how she was doing. “I’m getting old,” she said. “Going slow. But getting there. I’m ninety-four!” My mother was always 94, when she was really 93. I remember she was 93 right after she turned 92. And 92

Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Milk

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Charley calls to say he hasn't heard from me. The blinds are gone, so I take a lipstick off the living room table and draw a circle around his head. I make a half-circle for his gut, a squiggle for the telephone cord. He can come over, he says, just to …

Editing Academic Papers at 2AM

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To stop myself from imagining myself/ kissing you on your face, feeling your/ eyelashes on my lips as I pass over them,/ I imagine myself murdering you with/ an axe instead...

Cats

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Steve lowers himself onto a lounge chair and lets out a long, overdue sigh. Cliff and Jim, the frickin’ and frackin’ of the built-in pool industry, are making a Burger Chef run while the cement sets.

Jacob Ellis in Journals

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i once knew a place where lost souls gathered. there were various itinerants and the ill-intentioned, the malevolent and hard-hearted. but there were also many good ones and that was a type of charm upon the area. good souls can be lost also, and this is what some…

Stellar

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After our first kiss, a team of scientists scrubbed away the cancer of your lipstick.

Complex

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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…

The $275 Root Beer Float

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That was some root beer float. It cost us a grand total of $275. She pulls up in front of Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor and leaves the motor running while I jump out and run into the parlor. It was early evening. We HAD to have a root beer float. You

The Strength of Glass

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They sit across from each other and she smiles as if they were in a normal place.

Things Unspoken

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There's something about the way he touches me every time that makes my heart skip a beat and pushes the air from my throat. I shiver under his hot breath while he whispers softly and pulls himself closer, letting his fingers glide…