Most read stories

Can't We All Be Writers?

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Why not just self-publish on Fictionaut and be read by thousands of my peers? Why not release my cherished work directly to my thousands of Facebook or Twitter or blog friends? Can the budding writer that I am realistically expect a larger audience?

Edward Ogle the First

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Vundabar baclava

Where is Home?

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We are both 53 and this is the first time I’ve gotten past a third date with anyone from Match. Seth is different. I’m not sure why. My therapist said, “Well, maybe you’ll be good for each other. You both have to accept that you are recovering, or in reco

It's not heavenly light, b!*&#.

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He stopped believing in God when he learned how balls worked. Spermatocytes turned into spermatids and spermatids turned into spermatozoa, the transition taking place in tiny loop de loops called the seminiferous tubules which contain at least three…

Random Little Linguistic Discharges

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Eat the Body/ Drink the Blood/ Perfect the sacrifice,

The Gravediggers

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The night before we dug John Clark's grave, my brother and I stood outside his windows and got an eyeful. Rose, his wife, should have closed the blinds. There she was in the arms of Willard, her neighbor, middle school science teacher. It was a serious…

Penultimate Vampirekiller for 2026

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". . . Stinkin' vampires, death to all of ’em, them and their plague-festerin' rats. But the new ones, I don’t mind takin’ ’em down before gettin’ rid of ’em. —But you’ll never get that smell off o’ you if you use only one condom, I’m here to tell you . .

The Generic Poem

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I’m just your ordinary poem,

Passing by Pallanteum

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Passing by PallanteumOr ‘Dido's Song' Form: Double Sestina, iambic pentameter, rhymed Who knows of hell, knows less of paradise? I've known them both, when vanquished in your eyes, When draws the kelp where lost men had their graves Below…

Why I Don’t Drink

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He had that kind of connection / with his cocktails, intimate / sort of like a boy and his dog. // Cocktails have in any case / saved him from the bottom / of many dark wells. /

End Time

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and you fall down.

2

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Then I am in Washington DC impersonating an accountant.

Mercury Unbound - 2

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An infested, indifferent universe . . .

Nanny

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I remember the days when my brother and I would walk down Tillman Square, careful to avoid the cracks zigzagging along the ground. Well I did. My brother made a point to step on every one.

My Hillbilly's Got a Hole In It

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My hillbilly’s got a hole in it And I think I’m gonna die I swear you can see right through him Got a big hole in his side I think I pulled the trigger On the truth gun at my side Then it just got bigger It started getting wide He tried

Matar

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Gamo knows the Master doesn't make idle requests and orders the secret issue of weapons to the student priests, who now stand gathered at Kang's back. Swords, spears and shields are quietly handled and hidden from the Mantidean's view. Dr. Kang continues

Hooves on the Sand

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It was a bright day in April, the cruelest month, and the gears and pumps of the train beat on into the still air.

Eloise

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Even at five years old, I could tell that Eloise was haunted by ghosts that shook her core, leaving her dangling and seeking stability in slowly repeating her compulsive routines.

I'm a Clown in His Circus

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He called me Jay. I called him Dr Corvid. Until the very end, we lived alone. We had no use for any other companionship. I was Dr Corvid's finest achievement until he perfected his Disintegration Ray. I was the first working prototype of Project Novus.Dr Corvid created me…

before hell freezes over completely

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I remember how silk felt against skin, dressed in my damn flimsy things, while the cold bit my nipples. How I would lie in your arms when I was young, after being awakened from my pubescent slumber. (Enough of that!) In a rush to grow up for good, holdi

Shoot

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Dear Brandon Lee: I know that you're dead and can't respond to letters, but I've always felt a connection to you.

Stay By Me (And Make the Moment Last)

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I imagine Gene Simmons licking a twelve year old girl that looks like Erin dressed in a dog collar and leash.

Monsters Happen

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Dee startled awake from the dream, sat up in bed and looked around the room. The dream came back--hazy, yet clearer by the second. Dee had been warning the girl in her dream that he was a monster; that she shouldn't talk to him, should stay far away from him. …

Monsters

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I have always been frightened of Ferris Wheels

Vanishing Vapors with Mister Van Gogh

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These clouds are what I havewith me. Their language is minebut it is drying today aswe speak. I catch the darkeningsparks, but that's not to beyour concern. I am sure youshall go on. What I wantis to deliver your song. Idoubt it is for anybody else.Clouds are good at…

Ready to Surface in All Respects

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Our realtor is worried about selling our apartment. He believes it is a submarine. We cannot convince him otherwise. I agree that our apartment is a little small and more than a little cluttered. We have a lot of books. The sensation of standing or sitting in our…

It's really not the same

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It wasn't the same as taking a course with Ginsberg. Everyone knew Ginsberg. Nick Cave, too, everyone knew him. Waiting lists were full months in advance for those classes, everyone sent in resumes and writing samples, praying, begging to be included. Lish was just an…

Heavyweight

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That afternoon, after I'd swallowed that weight. Felt like a sinker, one of those weights that fishermen attach to their line to make sure the line goes down far enough. Go down far enough there, and I'll find it. That's what I was on about, that I had…

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....

I wear my square sunglasses

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square mannequin-wives who can’t look in their eyes