Most read stories

Shade to Shade

13131313 views11 comment00 favs

Cathy told the boy to sit in the seat behind her, and gave him her scarf for his face. He nodded and plucked the scarf gingerly from her hands, suspending it between the clean thumb and ring finger on his left hand.

Bell Ringer

13131313 views00 comments00 favs

Zal’s first day on the job they had 16 customers. They took turns crying, “Bring out your dead!”

The Bookshelves

13131313 views44 comments33 favs

rows and sections of casually arranged selectionswell crafted but haphazardpretty objets d'art randomly placed as cluesto significant life moments and revealing preferencesmy mother was an interior designershe would have clucked her tongueher head cocked to the sideas she…

Admonition

13131313 views2121 comments1414 favs

Let routine/ propel you through/ the day after/ the day before.

s'mores

13131313 views22 comments33 favs

hot, full focused, hypnotic

Theory Drive

13131313 views00 comments00 favs

III. The entire place was dusty and rocky, much different from my home. Pockets of power, heat, had proven to be dangerous and inhospitable, sometimes even volatile. It was not the first sign that I…

Going Along for the Ride

13131313 views11 comment11 fav

You could hear her coming from a long way off like she kept trying to catch her breath, like she was getting the fun rattled out of her bones. But it was laughter, always laughter that kept on filling up her belly from the inside and she was

Lower-order Mammals

13131313 views00 comments00 favs

they'd turned into humans overnight

Shell

13131313 views11 comment11 fav

a wingover a dark sealooking up from what you're doingwhat you're not doinglooking upseeing what I don't seeor the same thingalteredwhen I was eightI cut my foot on a sea shellblood is red sea waterput a shell to your earyou'll hear your own bloodhowling in the night…

The Busy World is Perfectly Happy

13131313 views55 comments55 favs

to continue to crumble its way through another grinding cycle of slowly walking to the edge of the universe ancient treelike beings, like gentle ghost buffalo, and our own thundering buildings by the hundreds of thousands, …

the starry night. van Gogh

13121312 views22 comments00 favs

Fortunately not all of the stars are represented in the sky, which is already filled enough with them, or their influence. Two separate swirling rivers of light are flowing into the picture as it is. And each of the stars and the crescent moon are pregn

Industrial Revelation

13121312 views33 comments33 favs

I tell my students about a timewhen seniority was told by the number of fingers on a worker's hands No weekends or overtime, children — bare toes dangling — twelve hours on the line I look for…

The Overfilled Silence

13121312 views33 comments33 favs

At the Rest Home for Silence We are teenagers At best I have to admit I fell asleep on the bus On the way to the Rest Home For Silence And I woke up To the noise Coming from the Overfilled silence It's the overfilled silenc

Witness

13121312 views99 comments55 favs

Someone must bear witness// at a comfortable remove.

Chicken Human

13121312 views77 comments33 favs

I was in a Chinese restaurant trying to read the menu when I realized Hunan was only 1 letter off of Human I thought it read Chicken Human This was just in a dream, so I ordered it It was delicious, but kind of salty Then someone at ano

Between the Trees

13121312 views11 comment11 fav

In his head the moment would have been different.

Please Do Not Blame Me

13121312 views77 comments44 favs

I was disappointed with love, and like everyone else, stammered out of love into a place horrified with meaning.

missing glory

13121312 views55 comments44 favs

i found her world cluttered and noisy, a place where logic frowns

Goliath

13121312 views00 comments00 favs

He glances at the other patrons of the café. He has the mix of middle management goliath and shy, fat kid at a school swimming pool. Neither fit comfortably but it's as bespoke as his suit, protective as fat. The arm rests on the table curling protectivel

What I know about love

13121312 views55 comments44 favs

There are many forms of impossible love. For example when the rain soaked streets are littered with yellow leaves.When a fine mist hangs in the air, and it is twilight and you are not here

The House on El Nino Diablo Court

13121312 views00 comments11 fav

On a cold, dark night near to All Hallows' Eve in October of 1930, I was summoned by Constable John Wakefield to the house of Vernalier Driscoll. The constable was wild-eyed and very nervous, his hair appeared to be standing on end.

The Process of Understanding (Strawberry Bees)

13121312 views44 comments44 favs

Are all my words lonely, or nearly departed; decapitated; Visible only from the ankles down, nonchalant? I Get bored. All my words are not paying Strict attention to the television. I get dysfunctional. My words, coincidental though they…

This Story Will Break Your Heart

13121312 views1414 comments77 favs

The first years of her life she had been owned by a bear hunter and trained to hunt bear, a terrible turn of luck for her.

No Fat Chicks

13121312 views44 comments11 fav

I have to look closely to be sure But they are there Bold stickers on three sides of the truck's cab Porcine cartoons Cutely admonishing No fat chicks! I am enraged Who does this guy think he is? This contractor's helper who makes …

gravelortian part 18

13121312 views22 comments22 favs

A poor boy scribbling

The Doorstop of Time

13121312 views55 comments33 favs

And then there was a man pissing in 2 urinals, going back and forth between them, saying, “You know how they say 2 heads are better than one? Well, now I get it!”

The Magic Dolls

13111311 views11 comment00 favs

Trees gaining maturity that waited in the sun, in the bursting mornings and long afternoons, became restless now in new night textures. Sometimes the wind that came before the storm seemed to be intelligent, and follow some unseen but labyrinthine pathway. But now it…

that whistle of yours

13111311 views22 comments11 fav

I heard a story once that said we are all entitled to seven good years. No, wait, that is not exactly what it said. Rather, it was more plaintive and inquiring. The feeling that song gave was more one of asking the question: Wasn’t I supposed to get sev

An Attempt at Reconciling with the Non-Existent

13111311 views55 comments33 favs

dealing with an over-aged imaginary friend gone rogue

Nostril

13111311 views11 comment00 favs

The damaged lining of this awkward appellation is just bewitching, begging of the light test prod — OW! and then stern mastery: Introducing the cruelly hooked thumb with ragged nail, plunging up, ripping into and down…