Most read stories

Trompe l'oeil

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After her grief had subsided, the wife felt immediate relief. / Suddenly she was free to abandon or pursue loneliness

Puppet X, 2

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It's important to sound human, I know To get fragile near your mother I myself get glimpses now and then

Napomo 17: April 1-6

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April spit its greeting, toe to head.

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...

wintering

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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 …

Fire In The Heart

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The woman leapt from the top of the burning building. The flames reddened the faces of the watching crowd. The heat pushed them back. The woman hit the ground. The crowd oooooed. If only I'd been a firewoman, I thought, with a ladder as tall as a building and a…

3 Poems and a Seething Pen

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it’s more about how all those words look around each other. he’s more interested in the shape of things, than the reality....

stye

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poked in the eye

Mama

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There were ten thousand photographs buried in the bottom of the jar

"Your face seems faint against the violet glades..."

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Your face seems faint against the violet glades; The long winds echo once, then fail to start. Some wounding scent has stripped my hopes apart That dwelled to scent you. From the cavalcades The leaves make, bare at times since eve's sting fades To…

The memories lived in the house

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each act of creation is a jolt of expectation

Shark

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Violet goes with her mother to the home, delivering cookies to old folks. She's getting to hate how she goes along with everything her mother asks. Some of her friends are rebelling already, and Violet feels something under her skin. It's still just a dark shape, lurking…

(children, children)

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Her name was Carrie. And yes, it was love at first sight. Yes, she was a client, and you were supposed to keep your hands off the clients. Everyone in real estate knew that. She came into my office and took a seat in the reception area. I had a listing on Cedar…

Do the Shogun Moon

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Heel to toe, our bunions are our ingrown medals.

The 83rd Meridian West

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The priest went into the place in those parts, the priest an old pear or grape gotten ripe and then moreso, but never actually expiring . He was hunched and it looked like he was broken at some integral part, but nobody could tell for sure where. One time, a bat…

The Great Divide

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On the ridge in front of them, appeared a creature, neither man had ever seen before, standing taller than their horses, the strange beast walked on two powerful legs...

Nora and Paul at the Coffeeshop

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The woman tapped a dark plastic stirrer on the tabletop in front of her to emphasize something she was saying.

The Funeral

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There aren’t requirements, only expectations. I’m writing this, because, at the time it happened it seemed strange to me. People might think I’m writing because now, it makes sense, right? It doesn’t, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll also tell you what i

Psycho Logic Deregulation

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" . . . the government works for the aliens now, taking over the world. That's why everything's so screwed up."

Assiduity Twenty Three

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The outside world will intrude . . .

The Brevity of Anthropology

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In time's embroidery, the human storyis a short stretch of a short strand within the thread of half a knot-and that stretch of strand's defective. What will mourn us when we're gone?Not the plants which live so lightly on the earth.Not the scorpions and not the ants.Perhaps…

JOSEPH YOUNG

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JOSEPH YOUNG Joseph Young You might start with the top of the head, where the heat goes. This is first, first from the womb, the first word. Joseph Young There might have been a faith that placed it in the mouth, not the…

The Fat Girl

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She never leaves her desk, but food appears like magic.

Birds Fly

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Birds fly and people hurry in the wind and rain like it's a matter of pity.

A Saturday Prize-fight in Cannington

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Lovell saw his chance, and more quickly than anyone thought possible delivered a sharp blow to Linehan's hitherto untouched jaw. The Irishman collapsed, and stayed down for the full count of thirty. The courtyard was then filled with shouts of incredulit

concession to the shapes of hunger

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(no one need fear timidity in our tastes― / we like trying new things, no matter our hastes!)

Crumpled

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We wanted so much to find ourselves in a beautiful world. It was, and is, but every inviting leaf has got another hidden dangerous precedent that must be surrendered to in order to survive to see another sunset with the ones you actually…

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

Watch

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At six a.m. he was awakened by the alarm on the watch, and found he could not remove it from his wrist, though he was able to turn it off. Of course, she was gone, but had left a little patchouli-scented note on a pillow.

three gretchens

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The story of a second, a stone, and an android -- all curiously interrelated and all, coincidentally, named Gretchen