Most read stories

Truthful Possum

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The possum is sneering with truth. I can smell the blood under his fingernails. He has seen it all, the backwoods distilleries and the back porch propane grilles. He has slept under the beds of whores and kings alike.

Busking for Free

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I'll always remember those warm, weekend twilights on the beach after the frolic of the waves seemed to flatten with the impending dusk, sending the surfers home and, after the bait was spent, sending the surfcasters away, I'd claim a square of sand as my stage,…

The Room of Doors

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"Which way ought we to go from here," he asked. She smiled again, "that all depends on where we want to get to." He nodded but didn't laugh so she sighed and strolled around the room, tuning and looking and considering her options.

Breaking Bread at Al Qalzam

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My first time alone with the women in Saudi Arabia...

Apollo (2/2 - sections 3-5)

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III. Through wheelwind crypts of mystery, through…

Pageant Night

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All the baby monsters are being born on stage.

The Day I Discovered, Followed The Night I Realised

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Nature is perfect... We can never learn that much

Abortion Mill

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She arranged to have an abortion at a doctor Greene’s office, who practiced out of a converted house on Solano Avenue on the north side of Berkeley. I took her there the day of the procedure. You couldn’t go to a regular hospital to have this kind of thi

Painted

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By the time she reached home, dinner would be there in thirty minutes, on the table. Not a lively table, just politeness, and calm. There were no issues of the day that needed discussing, no problems to be solved.

Amish in the Theater of Lust

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Through the Walmart parking lot they came...

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.

Carnival

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I’m well aware of the shadow stalking just to my left, her mannish voice flirting with my sensibilities.

REM-Embering my LED

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Someone desperately dials a number. Iris, draped tight.

Forevergrad

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The man was sitting at his makeshift kitchen table. He was forty-five years old. He wore his mortarboard with tassel whenever he left his home. Once inside either a reputable establishment or one generally considered less so, he was sure to take off his m

A Bum and his Shopping Cart, Giving Up his Ways

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A bum leaves his shopping cart in the middle of the intersection at 7th Ave and Perry St and walks away leaving everything behind Shopping cart gets hit by an onslaught of yellow taxis whizzing by The contents flying out into the hum

far beyond

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far beyond the far beyond sparkles the stars like sparkles

Shiny Dime

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I saw the shiny dime . . . .

Another Irresolute Essay on Lit and Crit

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. . . we agree that formal standards for identifying literary merit exist and are capable of being discerned, not merely of being ascribed. —but is this itself true?

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 19

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—Michiko, are you allergic to cats?

OUR NEXT BREAK

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You welcome the new girl by putting a message on her back. I breathe harder until she pops or until you ask me what I’ve seen or until you see my hand turn into a fist.

two hendecasyllabic verse notes for Mr. S.

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mind heart soul will blood sweat tears muscle, and bone,/and then always something else—not more, just else . . .

Passion

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From words to meaning― how complicated it is.

When Mistakes Are Made

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He also looked at the tv with a detachment he sensed was dangerous and the sensation scared him so he ran into the kitchen and felt ashamed alone in the hot room and trembled.

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…

eggs

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i ask you what i taste like and you say "not much."

Hubris, Now Hollowed

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We laughed like lords and lunatics Our schematics stretched before us

Candle Smoke Wishes

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“The minute I stopped wondering about the meaning of life is when I finally started enjoying life.”

moon/light

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the cue & flash

Five Million Yen: Chapter 11

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Ben was stuck between sweet essences and rancid Talmudic funk. It was going to be a long trip.

Danse Macabre

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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…