Most read stories

Homonyms Explicated

13011301 views55 comments55 favs

right/rite: Your touch smooth as impulse/ Swaying my mind

Yearning

13011301 views11 comment11 fav

He’d've been up there belting out the hymns then bickering with the vicar after.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 73

13011301 views22 comments11 fav

The pawnbroker sat behind bulletproof glass at the rear of the display area, a veritable potentate of hope and cash, exchanging expendable items for derisory cash.

Oed is Dead

13011301 views99 comments77 favs

I COULD always sleep. Go "home" now and sleep. My body and my fetus—who complain of this torture—would appreciate sleep. I have something to do that is not sleep. I have something to do that is not sleep. I have to try to wake.

Preacher Alphonse Jicklo

13001300 views55 comments11 fav

Samson was also somewhat in hopes that his son Jason would become engaged in this minor capitalist enterprise and 'turned around' in his life.

Stealing From A Corpse

13001300 views22 comments11 fav

He kept one scarf. It was the scarf that she would tie around his eyes to play with him, long, until he was in his teens. A silly game that made her happy and he squirmed with delight until he got too old. She did not want him to see her, only to know if

Improvisation on a few lines by Mark Strand

13001300 views11 comment11 fav

I am tripping on poetry. Purple ink drips from my eyes like ergot of rye.

The Scrawny Dog Gospel

13001300 views11 comment11 fav

Opportunity, says Webster, is a, "favorable juncture of circumstances." In my Oxford book of quotations, there are seven famous lines about opportunity. Seven – that’s it! There are twenty-seven regarding failure. Seems it's been easier for the great

Epic struggle between right and wrong...

13001300 views00 comments00 favs

The day was yesterday, November 11, 2010. I was home from work, and I pulled my car into the driveway. I stopped short of the garage to get out of the car and get the daily mail. Bills and unwanted coupons for places I didn't go and for items I don't…

Tincture Shunt Lunch Box

13001300 views33 comments00 favs

Most people don't understand what it's like being a pop idol. I am not most people. I am Tincture Shunt, and here I present you with my trajectory to stardom, in case you want to copy it for your own personal use. Unfortunately (for…

My Stigmata

13001300 views55 comments22 favs

“Don’t you think you should tie a tourniquet or something?” she asked as I bled profusely from the points where Jesus was wounded during his crucifixion.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 69

13001300 views00 comments00 favs

The Gringovitch family was gathered in the lobby of the hotel. The boys sat on the floor using their packs as back supports. Francesca Gringovitch sat on a chair with the remaining luggage in front of her.

Cow & Fly

13001300 views22 comments11 fav

If I can eat a cow...

Gilbert B Fumbleberry

13001300 views00 comments00 favs

“You know, Miss Viv, I love looking at the sun when it’s almost gone. It kinda looks like an orange and apple squished together. Those are the colors. And the puffy clouds under it look like a bed. It’s going to sleep."

eve

13001300 views1010 comments22 favs

she lays there wrapped in his baseball sheets

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.6 - c.2

13001300 views00 comments00 favs

Watching the surroundings, the school proceeded on with no threat in sight. The Circle of Four entered inside Azure’s classroom where she sat next to a window.

The Glass Bowl

13001300 views22 comments22 favs

I caught a fragment of a charged argument as I passed them. The young man said, “Well, I am talking about love.” And the young woman with equal volume checkmated with, “Well, I am talking about money.” Though their lives were none of my business, this exc

Water

12991299 views33 comments11 fav

After ten days in Jeddah, I start to miss the rain back home in Tennessee....

The New Main Stream

12991299 views00 comments00 favs

An hour later, we're no closer to the tunnel. In our rental car, we're just two in a school of a thousand fish skimming the edge of the island. Go with the flow, we keep saying to each other. We're just going with the flow. …

Not Even

12991299 views22 comments00 favs

That’s not just a trinket on her finger, that’s a rock, a fortress, a castle. No one can scale those walls except Joe Sixpack, slumped beside her at the airport. They’re not a match. I give it 5 years, max. Not even. Joe

The Inconsequential Leaping of Rabbits

12991299 views33 comments22 favs

If someone were to place a rabbit in her lap right now, there would be nothing she could do to hold onto it. It would leap. Drop. Hie its powerful body elsewhere. At the end of her life she would have nothing to show but a collection of rabbit-shaped empt

It Began With The Waffles

12991299 views33 comments00 favs

It began with the waffles, well first there were the potholders, but really the problem was the waffles. I don't even think she knew she was making waffles; much less that she had lost her potholders in the trash can the day before. But nonetheless the real issue here was…

#53 Cut Up

12991299 views55 comments44 favs

I loved her when she first came calling in the sodden dawn of spring. She was a strange and dangerous flower. Together we drank up all the money. The days staggered away like drunks lurching down a flophouse hall.

On Senior Prom & Being Profoundly Unpleasant

12991299 views22 comments11 fav

When I was in high school, we had a prom. The juniors were paired with the seniors; and when I was a senior, I recall meeting my date for the first time. You can imagine she was not enthralled.

Almost Regrettably Useless Advice

12991299 views33 comments33 favs

This world is always at least as strange as it seems, but usually far more strange, so many non-repeatable phenomena . . . .

Our Date Was Better In Reverse

12991299 views00 comments11 fav

I felt my words reach out and try to grab him by the heart. They missed.

Out of the frying pan...

12991299 views99 comments77 favs

the pressure from my lungs threatened to burst my eardrums.

Feb 5

12991299 views66 comments44 favs

He peels the garlic while I stir the lentils; he chops the cilantro while I peel kale leaf from stem. Also, the rings. Also, no one is going anywhere.

Departures

12981298 views55 comments22 favs

Fingers scrabble idly at pocket seams, forage between teeth, grasp for tepid cups, patter a drumbeat on knees.

What Matters Is Round

12981298 views00 comments00 favs

How do you do my name is Luigi and I am the Duke of Abruzzi. I love bubbles, strawberries, and sheets drying in the wind and sunlight. Hobbies include bank robbery, kidnapping, and extortion. As you can see, the streets…