Most read stories

(children, children)

14281428 views55 comments55 favs

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…

My Stuff

14281428 views55 comments33 favs

Crass, vulgar, boorish, impaired, angry, depressed, jealous, regretful.

Learning to Live With Radical Presbyterians

14281428 views44 comments11 fav

Proponents of this pragmatic line of thinking say a tolerant approach to Islam will succeed where force has failed to persuade terrorists to abandon the religious fanaticism. It's certainly worth a try--it worked with Presbyterians.

Mothers

14281428 views44 comments33 favs

No, no mother’s tenderness: she shows no sign of that … Do you know that she has them make their own bed? No, not the girl: the boys too! Yes, the boys. She humiliates them.

Amish in the Theater of Lust

14281428 views1414 comments77 favs

Through the Walmart parking lot they came...

In Real Life

14281428 views22 comments00 favs

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

THE REAL MAP

14281428 views00 comments00 favs

When we crossed the California/Oregon border, I had this vivid image of sleeping bags filled with human bones. I shook my head and the scene would not go away. The woods must be full of dead campers, hitch hikers, run-a-ways, and black teenage whores

the fine hair on your belly

14281428 views55 comments44 favs

On the beaches in the summer the fine hair rose up from under the material of your bikini and swirled around your deep navel, almost invisible to the naked eye, but not to the mind, which imagines everything funneling down into the center of your being,

Holiday Moons

14281428 views1010 comments55 favs

Not quite full, but bright,/ December 23rd.__ A waning moon for New Year’s Day-/ Portent?

There's Life Underground

14281428 views44 comments00 favs

I'm not dreaming anymore.

Fear

14281428 views99 comments44 favs

Fear I’ll be stuck here without a ladder

Not Writing

14281428 views55 comments33 favs

I don't look like other poets. / People hardly believe it when I say / "I write poetry, sometimes. / During lonely evenings."

Yellow Cabaret

14281428 views44 comments33 favs

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

Grand Finale

14281428 views11 comment11 fav

Adam hitched his dinosaur to a covered wagon. He drove the Virgin Mary to the Faire. Shiva rode behind them in a silver limousine combing out his long and flowing hair.

Post-apocalyptic Fable # 8

14271427 views1212 comments66 favs

Crouching like little children in a game of hide & seek, we entered the old house, slowly

A Man More Like Your Mother

14271427 views44 comments22 favs

Does he pack you a lunch when you're running late for work? Even when you're not running late? Does he insist on regular medical check-ups, for which he'll pay because you don't have insurance? Will he disapprove of your objectionable behavior, and not turn the…

The Frog

14271427 views44 comments55 favs

Publisehd in Linguistic Erosionhttp://www.linguisticerosion.com/2014/08/the-frog.html When Jesus and Magdalene began to cross the sunflower field they met a group of boys, squatting before a rocky outcrop. Covered with…

Worth a Thousand Words

14271427 views11 comment00 favs

He was triply satisfied: he’d come twice and he was a damn good-looking man.

What Momma Draws on Windows

14271427 views55 comments11 fav

...the woman of the sun, twelve stars around her head, the moon at her feet.

Checklist For My Next Lover

14271427 views33 comments11 fav

You’re a glimpse at immortality, a pathway to transcend the body, to the sphere just outside, where time ceases to matter and the ball of the sun grows warm in our bellies. I’ll love you more than the next lover and never as much as the lovers before y

The Cusp of Leaving

14271427 views88 comments33 favs

She waited on the hot, broken pavement, arm outstretched, her thumb a ticket to a distant, refracted horizon. Waves of heat danced like undulating snakes under the spell of a charmer. She pictured herself passing through them, abandoning the green of home for the…

Downbound A

14271427 views22 comments22 favs

Fall came early that year. The edge in the air wasn't just the cold, raw wind cutting down the street — the unity and collective embrace briefly shared after September 11th had faded. The weight from…

John Brigham's Dog

14271427 views44 comments22 favs

Every day from my window I saw John Brigham's dog making its way across my field. The dog picked carefully through the shorn corn stubble taking the same route, I'm guessing, it took when the stalks made a shaded rustling forest. There is a narrow path…

Grief Leaves the Room

14271427 views44 comments33 favs

It leaves on a Saturday,suddenly, while you are raking leaves or taking out the trash.Those inevitable, boring things.You do not hear it go;it's been quiet before when it left certain rooms. It no longersleeps beside you, and you learnedlong ago that the bed was…

Danse Macabre

14271427 views22 comments11 fav

Between the commercials, the local news is rampant with fusillade of bullets going raving mad, driven by some Machiavellian brainfuck, or bombshells smiling down with angels in black; emoticons of solid metal and pride. But you would put your faith in…

What I'd Have to Call My 'Meatsack Family'

14271427 views00 comments00 favs

This story is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional and should not be inferred. (Really!)

Five Stories About Inexperienced Youth

14261426 views44 comments22 favs

1. Pharmacy Randy approached the counter. It appeared that the only person in the pharmacy was the pharmacist himself, Mr. Crubby, and from the sound of the stiff white bag crumpling he was busy saving someone's life, or at least ameliorating someone's …

Five Million Yen: Chapter 39

14261426 views00 comments11 fav

Ben followed Jean-Claude’s white Fiat. Every time Ben shifted gears, he was reminded of Arris’s punch.

Fossil Beach

14261426 views1515 comments1212 favs

hiking to Fossil Beach

eclipse

14261426 views1111 comments77 favs

the moon is coming back now the shadow hovering and shiftingthe clouds a passing shroud I didn't know if I would be patient enough but now the sliver of light is increasing filling in / filling out the circle I am surprised by how much relief I feel there…