Most read stories

Caitlin's Boots

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A horn honks, brakes squeal, Chloe’s screaming, pulling at her. She’s lying on the sidewalk. Her shin hurts. Her knee. Chloe kneels beside her. Ring of kids staring. I’m good, she says. I’m good.

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

Hal and Estelle

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They had both discovered, though, that when people stared at them now, away from the carnival, it was very different. There, they were supposed to be odd, it was what people expected. Here, they were supposed to fit in.

Actually I Train Woodpeckers for Al-Qaeda

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Now that Spring has sprung I am reminded about the day a former neighbour complained about my squirrel collection. I love to feed the black squirrels that gather in my yard and she became convinced I had trained several ninja squirrels to enter her garden

ancients

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rheumy eyes wink, gnarled hands pantomime

To The Little Mouse Who Started Feeling Slightly Nauseous

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I heard them praying to some god none of us had ever heard of. I'm glad I went to the funeral and still have the yellow rose that I did not throw into his grave. At some point you have to stop nibbling from the moldy cake.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 14

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Frank left Michiko’s building and walked into Central Park.

Story to Forget

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The white Boeing 747, all three hundred and sixty eight seats of it, prepared to depart from Johannesburg Airport. Mild conditions on a clear flight path coupled with the soothing voice of the first officer didn't allay my unease. I offered a friendly nod to the…

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....

Third Shift

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Some great, doubtless precious; some hollow, likely empty; some only shards, but you never know...

Endless

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Endless. I find this story.Beginning. To walk.Repeating. Repeating.The Memory. Of snow.Amsterdam. Rivers narrow.Hearts. Divide.Hands. Emboldened.Patronizing. Unpatriotic.Semblance. House held open.Forging. The ties…

Snowbound

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Shut up.You shut up.That's disgusting.You should talk.Fuck off.Fuck me.whore.Yes.More.Shut up.

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.

Freakuccino

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The bus was almost empty, just me and an Asian girl who'd cleaned up some since I'd seen her. She was wearing a too-big T-shirt that said Freakuccino and writing in a notebook. If she remembered me she didn't say so I didn't either. Everybody sheds some…

Salzburg

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

New White Blouses

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always thought you'd show up with a good friendly grin, your heart full of gnosis and the rest of you dressed in denim or terrene hues,back from across the world to honor our sacrosanct thing maybe it would be in the wind chiseled afternoon,or the dusk by tables…

Your Guide to a WASP Bar Mitzvah

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“The first thing you must remember,” Polly tells the Levensons, “is that every penny you spend on your guests is that much less you can spend on your horses.”

Assiduity Twenty Three

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The outside world will intrude . . .

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…

Lullaby for a Dragon Baby (for Josephina TuTu Waring)

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Lullaby for a dragon baby who breaks the bough with bottled fists escapes the armored cradle stealing swords from terra cotta men to slash the Ming canopy and loose the butterflies that will free Ho Chi Minh from the fire.

A Sight Worth Keeping in View

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. . . I wanted to put Tiffany out of her misery and mine and shove her in front of the next large vehicle hurtling down the drive-through lane . . . .

The Madwoman Who Called on My Wedding Day

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She’d reached me after running through the directory, alphabetically. Apparently no one in the a’s or b’s or c’s before me would talk to her.

The Mender

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I polished his shoes to an avid black; sewed buttons backand mended torn silk and cotton.His clothing was my busy work. Needle, thread, stitch, and iron,I was his apothecary of linens.Blood, wine, soup, vomit --these I cleaned too, until all theircolor and scent…

The Money Tree

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Tree full of dimes and dollars

My Wife's Dream

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He was a Jack Russell terrier hanging like a baby in a carrier strapped to my chest He had all four legs wrapped around me and was licking me with his long tongue I asked him what his name was, and in a real low voice he said Min

Manifesto of ism

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We walk though the streets of London, New York, Paris, Prague, Barcelona, Skegness, inhaling air heavy with metaphors, eyes set alight by the microscopic pyrotechnics of quotidian symbols hitherto debased by the outmoded conventions of a bankrupt civilisation decomposing in…

A Study in Plastics

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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.

The Lioness For Real

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you happen to me like motorcycle tricks

Gun Play

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The guy – it’s Billy Krazik - turns and aims at Jamie Stockwell, sitting there calmly as if he’s in the play or something and he takes two to the head.

Goody Two-Shoes

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She locked herself in the bathroom on our wedding night. That was my first clue that I had made a mistake.