Most read stories

Valley Rugstore

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He hunched low and forward on his bike, his 14-year old self, flying down the dusty back roads of this Great Midwestern Land, his head full of the smell of the algebraic girl he sat behind in math class just hours ago.

I Want to Sing To You

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Love is always going to be all even when all else is floating to the burning ground.

The Uninvited Guest

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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.

The Late Show at the Argo

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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.

War Nurses and Lost Fathers - For Memorial Day

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I have been mother to a hundred soldiers, holding their hands barely knowing their names

Coffee

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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…

No Goodbyes

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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.

Requirement

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

Boys of Summer in Yonkers (Memoir Excerpt # 1)

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Boys of summer in Yonkers played stickball and baseball.

The Toy Store

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Figures are a strip tease.

Seven Haiku for Sad and Scary Times

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

Lying to the Boss

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

My Voyeur Life

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

Son of Uncle Sam

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He’s hooked on the pinball / excitements of adolescence

Halloween

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"For God's sake," my mother said. "There could be anthrax in the candy." My mother worried about me going out on Halloween.

Hobo Junction

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“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.

Traces in the Winter Sky

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

King boy

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“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…

Eviction

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

Greyhound

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

3 short poems

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Say the word and I shall become a photograph;

The King's Largesse

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This little town lost its mill...

Big Secrets

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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.

2010; What I Wanted

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

Smooth Criminal

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In an early scene in Marvel's 2015 movie Ant-Man, the film's protagonist, Scott Lang, a convicted felon and former burglar, is summoned to his boss Dale's office at Baskin-Robbins."Three years at San Quentin, huh?" says Dale."You found out," Scott replies."Baskin-Robbins…

Z Machine

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

The Boys

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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…

Role

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

Things I Should Have Done - #2

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I do not trust Shay anymore.

All-Night Cartoon Party

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'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.