Most read stories

My First Horror Show

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

November 6th

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Need not remember, the 6th of November.

Feb 1

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On our wedding day he carried all of the furniture out of our small bedroom, created a sanctuary.

Jade Cicada

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Jade in the emperor’s death mouth – to the grave – all openings closed – no breath – no air – no life to enter to leave – the end should be silent – you stop my mouth

The Night She Took Her Dignity Back

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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.

(Yet Another) Mask

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In frustration, he picked up a hammer and slammed it straight into the center of the mask.

Post-apocalyptic Fable # 8

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

Mother's Day

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By lunch: The dryer is an F-5 dervish of mismatched socks, blue jeans and your yellowing college T's, lovingly held onto. For a moment there is a comforting warmth and softness to their smell. In the debris strewn landscape of the living room a carcass

Into the Mystic

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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…

I want to hear the man talk

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I remember going out to a restaurant with some guy and a friend of mine who brought her little boy along. And suddenly her boy said, “I want to hear the man talk.” Well, that stopped us. Smart kid, I thought. He was fed up hearing her women friends talk

Buck, naked

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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.

tremendous thousand years' charisma

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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

Yamoussoukro, 2012

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

Rubber Chains

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He turned metal chains to rubber with the force of his mind. He prepared tacos for the paperboy.

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.

Chalky goes to night school and studies the Classics

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I don’t even want to think about Aethra shtupping Posiden and Aegeus

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…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 18

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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.

Pura Vida

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The girl lifts my head, and I sit up straight once again. She hands me a pair of old work gloves, helps put them on my swollen hands. She wipes my face with a wet, warm towel. Her thin arms tremble. She cries. I cry.

These Dreams We Are Having

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It is just a little break from the colicky baby who has finally fallen asleep. Just a little break, maybe a half hour. And the faulty heater, that wolf at the door, knows that and will take his chance. The two of you are lying on your backs, both of yo

Moving Out

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Lying in the blissful glow of young television. Idly sleeping, eyes open and ears closed.

All Wet

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the small break of consciousness that is my dreamswaterso much wateri can never forgive the watertoo many tears

Fourth World

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Where are you going, boy who never was?

Dreams Bright White Smash

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She was there then gone then there again. We were naked and wet and touching, she let me touch her, but she didn't want to be there. But she was, despite herself. It was my dream. You can go if you want. …

(Withheld) 1970

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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…

Old Photograph Stuck Between Documents

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

Tea Time Story

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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."

The Friend

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She is walking to the café to meet her friend. Her friend is there already because she walked from where was getting her haircut. Her friend sent her a text message that said, “OMW” for…

Bear Weather

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Man, this bearskin rug was a big, awkward sonofabitch on his back....

Soulspring, by Norman Klein.

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The call came...