Most read stories

It Stops

25532553 views2525 comments1515 favs

We made our escape on grimy streets under skies filled with crows, flapping like litter in the wind.

Children are always beautiful

25532553 views66 comments11 fav

“Your children are beautiful,” she said, handing back his wallet after removing several bills. Her mouth was fringed by bitten-off melon lipstick, a calm kind of mad. She told him to call her Sally, “like the song McCartney rips his lungs on.” She…

The Late Show at the Argo

25522552 views1010 comments22 favs

The couple drove away at the end of the late show. They crashed sooner or later, often with fatalities to the woman cuddled up against her illicit lover.

Hobo Junction

25502550 views1212 comments55 favs

“How much is stuff worth? Stuff man! Bling! Cargo! STUFF! What's it worth to you? It ain't worth a shit, man! Clean clothes! Comfortable shoes! A ride! Those things are important! But they’re only stuff.

2010; What I Wanted

25502550 views1414 comments99 favs

You can't always get what you want, and fortunately, that's sometimes a good thing.

The Six-Second Rule

25502550 views55 comments22 favs

The Six-Second Rule They come to the new world, but bring the old world with them – the six-second rule. When their bagel drops face down on the café floor, apparently it’s the old world six-second rule that applies, instead of our own

Requirement

25492549 views5757 comments2727 favs

She sits at home, on the floor of the kitchen, bathing her stuffed animals in molasses to match the ones on the news.

Coffee

25492549 views99 comments44 favs

I hate walking into restaurants and cafes by myself to meet someone. I always feel awkward, as if no one will claim me. I'm hanging on the threshold now for an agonizing few moments scanning the room until I see my friend.“Hi!” she says, waving her cup at…

The Uninvited Guest

25482548 views1717 comments1414 favs

The first time I see her, she is slouched in a tire swing, pushing off with one foot and dragging the other beneath a dying pecan tree that probably hasn't made a nut in 20 years.

Traces in the Winter Sky

25482548 views1818 comments1212 favs

Exhaling slowly and deeply, Tyler settled his back in against the saddle of the tree's broad trunk and let it all go.

No Goodbyes

25472547 views3535 comments1313 favs

She walks through the house she’d bought. The filth and the stench of mould nearly make her retch. Dead fleas line the windowsills, the dressers, the floors.

Role

25472547 views33 comments22 favs

The pieces of bread dipped us humans in cheese, the cheese made by cows from our milk.

The King's Largesse

25462546 views99 comments77 favs

This little town lost its mill...

My Voyeur Life

25462546 views22 comments22 favs

It's the way an earnest five-year-old boy pronounces every single letter as he whispers. Something about octopuses, something else about peas.

Y.

25462546 views33 comments22 favs

We are the generation who tattoo our stories on our bodies, who pierce what appears impenetrable; we fly our scars like pennants.

Greyhound

25462546 views2222 comments1717 favs

I stare, out a dirty window, / into the sanitary blackness.

Z Machine

25452545 views99 comments88 favs

I'm afraid to find out what my spirit animal is

Lying to the Boss

25442544 views1212 comments1111 favs

I was having festive sex flashbacks and wasn't thinking sharply.

King boy

25442544 views22 comments11 fav

“He had emerged from slavery, -- not the worst slavery in the world, not a slavery that made all life unbearable, rather a slavery that had here and there something of kindliness, fidelity, and happiness, -- but withal slavery, which, so far a human aspiration…

Dream of Burying My Grandmother Who Has No Grave

25442544 views66 comments33 favs

We buried her upright, in the stance of warriors.

Eviction

25432543 views88 comments44 favs

Tell me your hero and I'll tell you what's cooking with you...

5” X 6” In A Sturdy Frame

25432543 views11 comment11 fav

The first morning we met—I remember the rain, soft the way I like it—was a series she later attributed as a fourteen-frame sunrise.

The Toy Store

25422542 views88 comments33 favs

Figures are a strip tease.

Son of Uncle Sam

25422542 views3030 comments1919 favs

He’s hooked on the pinball / excitements of adolescence

This place exists outside of time

25402540 views88 comments44 favs

I'm Icarus in Brueghel's painting. My wings as it turned out were made of wax. Mothers, tell your daughters this truth. You cannot fly so close to the sun.

Big Secrets

25402540 views55 comments44 favs

O’Malley imagined the blissful, narcotic innocence of Toby’s world where soft-shell crabs crawled into people’s mouths and hummed a happy tune as they were chewed and swallowed.

The Boys

25402540 views1717 comments66 favs

The Boys The Boys, they call my brothers in the neighborhood, or Those Boys. The Taylor Boys. Sometimes, Mom calls them Thing One and Thing Two, like in The Cat in the Hat. Those bad boys. Nobody has brothers like my brothers, kicked off the school bus, barred…

Seven Haiku for Sad and Scary Times

25392539 views2222 comments1515 favs

The Cheshire grinning/ moon cups itself to capture/ Venus should she fall.

Things I Should Have Done - #2

25392539 views3636 comments66 favs

I do not trust Shay anymore.

55 words

25382538 views1414 comments1313 favs

The patient people who work with the insane are not my kind of people. They are too entertained by the oddness of the inmates and act with a superior sense. I, on the other hand, am odd myself, searching for adherents to my view. The inmates knew me as such and agreed…