Most read stories

1. The Knife (or, Ignorance is Bliss)

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He showed me the knife, said it was his best friend. This knife is older than you, he said. Here, run your finger along its blade. Like this. He showed me how to do it.

The New Lycanthropy

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Who remains after the aching night has departed into dawn and left us to week-old sleep

How To Give Dating Advice as a State Social Worker

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I tell him if he wants to impress a girl he should learn to cook. He shifts his body. I add, crab cakes work well.

Assiduity Eighteen

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A convoy of military vehicles is heading into the city as we are heading out.

Johnny Bruzzone: Pool Hustler

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I was a coward and didn’t want to get killed like Heimley. Heimley was a nut at high school. I saw him myself one night put his hand right through the windshield of this car he was working on, along with a monkey wrench. Sure, he was drunk, but th

When John Fell(Second Revised Version)

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"I still believe in love."--John Lennon It was war of the ancient order come to the farthest shore at last. No one leaves this world without an arrow through his heart. Why should I lie to you now? We all fight the truth in…

Passion

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From words to meaning― how complicated it is.

Sidewalk Cafe at Night: van Gogh

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while the fat stars stand out in the cobalt night.

The City

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“A story shines brighter through a tear in your eye,” You say

afternoons

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i think god composed afternoons with crayons

Another Dream

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“I fly in my dreams,” his mother said. “It's my privilege.”

The Maple Leaf Club

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One of his operas was confiscated when he couldn’t pay a hotel bill. He ended up in a mental home, demented from syphilis.

Calenture

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CALENTURE The horizon is marked with the still sculptures of dead gulls; A young man floats off slowly on the…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 8

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“Okay,” Boris said, wiping his mouth, “ready to go see these paintings by Lenin? We go now.” “Where are these paintings exactly?” Ellen of Troy (NY) asked. I didn’t mention which Troy she was from. “I have friend in Prague,” Vladimir said. “Has sh

Mornings

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Over the last years of her life, my mornings began when Mom decided to play. Sitting on her black, ball-and-claw stool, she'd raise the key cover, stretch her neck and shoulders, and take slow, deliberate breaths. A deep, meditative state descended over the room and…

Letter Home

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The pen point sits motionless on the paper...

Citronella Socks

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a cat named email..

Wanderer and The Temple

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the odd stone stands/taller than trees/it protrudes from the young forest/an old mecca but smooth

A Shower of Rain

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You have at least an intermittent belief.

Love Note to/ Legal Pads

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toe and hand-/ holds against/ the shear cliff

Blank Checks

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Then he said something that really made sense, said he kept a blank check in his back pocket...

The Fake Humility of Stars is a Terrible Thing to Waste( in Three Recycled Parts)

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F Bomb I am coming in like a blackbird. Like I'm going to tickle your mud. I am coming in carrying a half-sunk message backward. Is that your lonesome answer? I am coming in to sweep for all saints. 'Course I didn't just wake up…

Zum is one instance of "um" herein

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Millennium jumped strumming lithium gum cumulative outnumber humiliated résumé jumpy instruments

Midwestern Charm

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He slathered the glue on my scalp and talked non-stop about Harlem. Electrodes or nodes, I never asked which, would measure something inside my head. I doubt they actually did though, measure anything. I've had the pleasure of having wires glued to my skull before and have…

Seance

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communication/ with the dead

Exhibit B

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My sweet granny was like Exhibit A that I was adopted. I mean, how can anyone be sure?

Either Side of the Glass

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Why do you lie? the old woman repeats when her mouth is not busy filling the waste bin. We sit as far away from her wheedle and wretch as the small waiting room allows. A young woman glares at us through the mental health clinic's safety glass…

My Own Gun

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“What's a slut?”

Love-sad

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Then there she is, and she makes me love-sad; it's a vehement, absolute, hard love-sad no one else needs to understand, though they can see; it's an emotion so concrete it's felt from the chest, not from a tenuous concept called heart.

Visiting Mom's Family in Oklahoma

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The strangers say hi at the Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, compliment my gold necklace, tell me I'm as beautiful as a Southern Belle, ask where I got my Gucci shoes. “Wow, New…