Most read stories

In the Pink Distance

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in the pink distance / a boy in a corduroy shirt / sits before an upended electrical spindle / and drinks a vodka gimlet

Next Time, Academics

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I suggested when we passed the flesh shack that we turn around and that I go in and say to the sex workers that the Russians are fetching $3.5K per hour in Manhattan and it's private, unlike there at that road-side shack.

Losses in Translation

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One/ can’t always trust the eye and ear// in such matters but what can one do?/ Mistakes will be made.

Startled by Towels

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I woke up when the smoke alarm insisted. Either the curtains were on fire or I hadn't changed the battery.

Incivility for Breakfast

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I gently honked my horn and gave her the kind of friendly neighbor wave that only friendly neighbors can give. She didn’t wave back. What the hell is her problem?

People of Walmart

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You look at me with that contemptuous smirk while I'm here in Walmart dressed in sweats and house slippers, sloppy, a bit fat, trying to figure out which electric toothbrush to buy.

Yellow Cabaret

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Hail the yellow cab the yellow one will do just fine as second condiment to the sun

Monogamy

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cummings starts to sniff, his usual routine. He feigns aloofness while raising one wolfy leg to pee on Eliot's sneakers.

Third Shift

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

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

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 26

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Friday afternoon. Angelique Brody knocked Francesco’s studio door.

Arcade

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My father owned a penny arcade. I worked for him every summer all during my youth. My job was to hand green tickets to customers who achieved a certain score on Skee-Ball or shuffleboard. The coupons could be redeemed for merchandise which we had on display on…

The Price of Empire

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I saw three kids the other day, two girls and a boy, crouched in conspiracy

Yamoussoukro, 2012

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He is underneath them. His head is like the head of a worm.

We Must Save Ourselves

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We Must Save Ourselves I'm looking for my savior on subways, Is he this man pushing half himself On a skate board, from car to car, Singing I have no Legs, I have no Legs, I'm looking for my savior in coffee shops Of…

Jack Noodle

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So you printed your resume on this coffee cup - that’s something - I wanted you guys to think about me every morning - while you were getting your coffee

My Cyber Companion

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Jannsun started working for Matrix back when he gave up on writing the next great American Novel, which was about five years ago, right after the war. He was old for a Web Zone designer but who knew? Who cared? His work was all done via satellite and as l

Are You A Handywoman? Take This (Not Entirely Serious) Test and Find Out!

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As I was reading “Not Your Mother's Book on Home Improvement,” a new collection of light-hearted essays by (primarily) middle-aged female do-it-yourselfers, it became abundantly clear to me that, unlike the women who tell their stories here, I am not a…

My Life on Discord

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I’m on Discord but I don’t know how to do anything.

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.

Love Is All You Get

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"All these people," Rammstein complained, "seems all they wanna do is write about love, and sex along with it, you know? And I think it's because it's all feelgood shit; you know, your sweet baby loves you, and he or she's hot as Angie or Brad, and…

Changes

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She was sitting in her swivel chair talking to a girl who was her younger image, ... “Well, there you go, I’m a fire sign and you’re an earth. That’s just the way it is.”

Metropolitan

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Metropolitan I. Atlantic harbinger of this our swaddled dawn: Mistaking moon's sea sweep for this the frown The sky's plain-countenanced creatures maytimes weep Upon the surface-sundown of our lawn, When gaily surfaced for…

The Blueberry Man

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It was a Thursday. That's when I found out about the blueberries. Those precious, round little wonders, now forever untouchable.I left the note on the ledge of the balcony, taped down so it wouldn't fly away.It was going to come to this, eventually. After…

Myra's Cigarettes

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I know from the experience of too many odd sideways glances that folks are seldom interested in my brand of observation. No one else seems to wonder how many commas there are in the library or how many other people own that exact shirt.

The Woman Who Loved Water

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I hear the woman upstairs running water. But that's incorrect. I should say the woman upstairs is running from water. She loves water. And water loves her. She loves cooking and doing dishes but especially running water. She runs water all day doing dishes, doing laundry…

Payton, Pelt & Hargrove: 3 (Sorta) Young Lions of the Jazz Trumpet

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It’s the middle-aged jazz musician who tends to get lost in the shuffle; no longer news, and not ready for the marble statue-treatment.

Damaged Goods

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As she slunk to her topless Mercedes sparkling curbside, wax job hand rubbed in Hamburg, testosterone heads turned wishing similar treatment.

Meticulous

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Have you measured the cups, the conveyors' yield? Do you know the span? I am the LORD your God, she murmured.

Notebook (excerpt)

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I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.