Most read stories

We Should All Have One Great Love

13961396 views66 comments55 favs

My dumb body that does not speak still cried out your name last night. Did you hear it, maybe in your sleep?

Watch

13961396 views11 comment00 favs

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.

Not Quite There Yet

13961396 views33 comments33 favs

You're not late yet, but if you don't move now, you will be. You close the cover of your mac book, don't even finish the sentence you were working on or close down the file. What had been of the utmost importance, clutching at your…

Double Vision

13961396 views33 comments22 favs

To conceive of them separated was unthinkable to every wet-eyed soul at the burial.

Into the Mystic

13961396 views55 comments44 favs

Writing opens doors to perception. For example, the glockenspiel smells of gardenias, but the catwalk is opening a can of Franklin stove. It emits fumes of fairyland and olive. And in the green and pleasant country of Scotland and England, vintage trains go…

tremendous thousand years' charisma

13961396 views22 comments11 fav

Okay, I’ll admit it, the earth was shaken on the world's underside, when you left for California. And I sometimes slept on the shores of Lake Michigan and Fox River for your tremendous thousand years’ charisma. To say I cried out in pain would be lettin

Harried or Employed

13961396 views1111 comments66 favs

Irony is written sarcasm. Sarcasm is spoken irony: the opposite of what is meant. Catholic irony in fiction seems deeper and more related to theme. Protestant irony starts with P as do other þing.

The Form of a Cyclist

13961396 views88 comments44 favs

His legs were pedaling hard and his heart was beating fast, He's got his scars; He can't outrun his past, Down the hill he goes, wind whipped his hair, a new style with each draft. He broke his brakes long ago; He cut the cable and ripped off the pads. He cried…

The Bricks

13961396 views00 comments00 favs

He ordered a palace built, and the builders came to blows, which is why the father’s eyes have swollen shut, and the oldest son’s knuckles are bright plums.

Why?

13961396 views66 comments55 favs

A perennial question.

Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Milk

13961396 views22 comments00 favs

Charley calls to say he hasn't heard from me. The blinds are gone, so I take a lipstick off the living room table and draw a circle around his head. I make a half-circle for his gut, a squiggle for the telephone cord. He can come over, he says, just to …

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 18

13961396 views11 comment11 fav

I went back to the Charles Bridge over the Vltava River and felt the plaque of the Wall of Gropers, and that was where we hatched our plan, in front of my ancestors. I could just feel their presence there. They would be with me, the Gropers of Prague.

The Night She Took Her Dignity Back

13961396 views44 comments00 favs

She had endured three years of abuse for those hot, fleeting moments of tenderness—just enough warmth to keep her second-guessing the bitter frost. Now the ring promised a lifetime of biting back her pain.

The Zone of Forgotten Things

13961396 views55 comments22 favs

In the zone of forgotten things, everything moves through a weak gravitational field

Jazz Torn

13961396 views11 comment11 fav

Lungs bursting in the alleyways trying to keep with the beat.

Love Is All You Get

13961396 views55 comments33 favs

"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…

instead

13961396 views44 comments44 favs

instead of gun metal deceit, sounds of malice;be a drop of rain.

Rescued From A Dream

13951395 views00 comments00 favs

There were six people on the bridge, myself included, and we were making our way across when something exploded—it was more a rifle shot than explosion, actually—and it cut like a razor through the delicate fabric of the moment.

Wireless

13951395 views1515 comments77 favs

It seems that back in 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm came to this town

(Withheld) 1970

13951395 views00 comments00 favs

The Moon The hatch of the lunar module hissed as it opened, a few puffs of leftover water vapor escaped toward them in a sparkling white cloud that rapidly dissolved…

13 statements about the United States of Chimerica made by the Bird King during a press conference

13951395 views11 comment11 fav

1. Jesus made the United States of Chimerica from the hide of a gator he killed with his bare hands back in the winter of '81.2. The people of the United States of Chimerica are watched over by a straight-talkin' angel with hillbilly eyes and a crown of nuclear missiles.3.…

Old Photograph Stuck Between Documents

13951395 views33 comments22 favs

I spent the evening looking at our old pictures. / We were never happy. I realize that now.

Buck, naked

13951395 views88 comments11 fav

Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

Tea Time Story

13951395 views11 comment00 favs

She smiled at him. "You want to know the secret, that's why you want her to tell - not because you want her to be happy."

Coffee Alone

13951395 views66 comments66 favs

And pity us, this generation of sighing:

Notebook (excerpt)

13951395 views66 comments44 favs

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

My First Horror Show

13951395 views00 comments00 favs

I remember screaming and wanting to run from the living room that time you came home drunk.

my apartment needs more culture

13951395 views00 comments00 favs

the first night we visited/ i stepped on a splinter/ while walking to the car/ and half-limped back,/ hiding a wince.

Trot fast, my dapple gray!

13951395 views22 comments11 fav

It was night. It was Massachusetts. It was an interview in a snowstorm that Detective Vivian Diaz wished would go away.

God Wanted Us to Come Here

13951395 views00 comments00 favs

Betty had been looking for a distraction; the lawsuits were out of control. Her last nonprofit, Faith and Life Children's Organization, had run into some difficulties due to the recession and the obvious result of trying to do more with less. Why couldn't people…