Most read stories

The Toy Store

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Figures are a strip tease.

The Penguin Flight

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Even though I made the phone call, it was really Steven who put me on that plane. I wanted to fly out at dawn. "Let's wait till after breakfast," he said. "Change to a later flight." By that time everything was sold out except a few seats on Doomed Flight…

Eviction

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

Snatch XI

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Public voice when he's tense.

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.

Still Life

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One rainy day I walked to an out-of-the-way section of town where the buildings were old, and the streets were cobblestone.

Y.

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

Scratch

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'That November I washed my hair with rabbit's blood -"

The Other Side

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That was the first time I went over the wall. No bird opened its mouth to chirp. No wind blew. I staggered a little on the stony edge. And dropped down. I changed in a cafe. Shaved. Emerged as that rare thing: a new man. My clothes were old, saved for

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…

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.

Greyhound

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

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.

The Counter Where Names Go To Die

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One day a woman, one of several translators at Ellis Island, asks him why he has changed a passenger’s name from Checzowicz to something else. “The name was too long,” he says. “Ten letters.” She replies, “But you didn’t change O’Shaughnessy, and it has

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.

Freckles

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My eyes became purple, and boys called them "picture windows". Well, not boys, exactly, but one girl did. Junie.

The Naked Mountain

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Once upon a time, a young writer decided to leave his home in Iowa City, and seek wisdom in the East.

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

The Undertakers of the Dead by Unseen Hands(Young Poet at the Bus Stop with Some new Vinyl in his Hand)

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"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.'--Nadine Gordimer Other things do matter just as much of course. Of course they do. Hey I'm still kind of alive inside this poem here. At least I'd like to think so, so yes another…

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…

2010; What I Wanted

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

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.

Z Machine

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

55 words

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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…

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.

How It Is

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When Ryan isn’t around, those of us who know him lament that he peaked at 17, at Disney World.

This place exists outside of time

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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.

(There Are Ways) to Come Home

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When you return home, one year to the day that you left us, you will wonder if you can do it all over again.

Watercolored Different

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Simon Ridley only had one special power. Whenever he walked into a room, an awkward silence would descend.

Bubbles

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It’s about 4:30 when the phone rings. I look at the display and see it’s home. “Hey,” I say picking up. “I hate you,” says Jules. “I hate, you, too,” I say. My co-workers don’t even blink. They’ve heard this before.