Most read stories

Honeymoon du Jour

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a sequel to Love in Miniature, after the couple is married.

Main Street

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You know when you see the flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror that you're not being pulled over because of a busted taillight or carelessly doing fifty in a thirty-five mile an hour school zone; your crime is being a Black man behind the wheel. It happens often…

A Dear, Sweet Girl

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He was pretty much packed, one large suitcase full, two crates of albums, one duffel bag. He had to leave room for the three riders he would pick up on his way, one in St. Louis, two in Columbia.

Big Top Boogie

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I had the blues. I was feeling down the day the circus came to town. There was cash in my pocket and a bag of weed. I went to the circus with a desperate need to renew my faith in the good of mankind. Perhaps under the big top some laughs I’d find.

Elegy on a country rooftop

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Willa knows why Jimmy reached for the thirty ought six Chambered a round With three more clinking in his pants pocket And took to the roof

After Work

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“I was thinking about the other night.” He said from the living room.      She could hear his work boots scrape and creak across the old wood floors, and the sound of his weight landing on the couch, then the snap of the lighter as he lit the pipe and…

Youngstown

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Last night I met a man from the same littleshithole townthat you are fromand I kissed him in the mouth to find out if he tasted like coallike you do.While he slept, I tried to pinpoint on a map I drew on his back exactly how far apart you might have been:how many years…

One

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His will is whole, inviolate, and wholly full of possibility.

Fiery Passions

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Isaac Beauregard Lyons woke with a start as he heard the slamming of a pickup truck door then a curse from someone down on his front lawn. “Damn it Mike, be quiet!” someone shouted.

Agra Road

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Beyond a jade gate, a lotus pillar nods to / a braided fort.

Treasured Souls

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Oh, but we have lost-- such treasured souls, at immeasurable costs. Oh, but we do moan and cry-- such treasured souls, no tangible, useable reasons why. Oh, but we whose hearts do bleed-- such treasured souls, we…

Unreality Television

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I was told, take him round the back and deal with him.

Just a Kiss

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We are diminished by our desire for innocence, and we debase those who possess it.

"It's Just Breakfast" Fills Dating Service Niche

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"Too many people were presenting themselves in a false light on lunch dates,” she says. “The power ties on the men, the come-you-know-what-me pumps on the women–that’s not what married life is about.”

HEARTTHROB SERIES

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And when you come back, you work minimum wage and have water cooler sex and your face is no more than archives.

Summer's smack

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clouds clot the horizon all day

Loop

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At night, I watch TV shows with fictional characters who lead my life.

Bonsai

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Adam, now Eve-less, stood before his most exquisite Bonsai, wallowing in the miseries of youth.Seth Gall has had work published in China, Canada, and the U.S. His work has appeared in Word Riot, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Nanoism. He is S.H. Gall in decomP…

Letter to Garrison Keillor

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Hilda Raz lost a daughter. Her son gained a persona, backed by biological components. I was impressed by his male-pattern baldness. A biological genius. And yet, I was reduced and in the elevator mentioned crying about it.

Crisp and New

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He told me it isn’t my fault. That my brain isn’t slowly and deliberately killing itself, not barbarically stripping away its own wiring to expose razor bursts of electricity.

Flavor of Law

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It’s funny how white people are so reluctant to reveal their ignorance of hip-hop culture. “There are a number of robust on-line tools that can assign randomly-generated rap nicknames to members of the federal judiciary,” I told him.

The Old Man (The End)

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The dark staircase creaked as he crept down to the basement. The even whoosh-whoosh of the washing machine was comforting to him. He reached for the light as he entered the room. A dim bulb blinked on above him. There was a small table across the room f

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

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Marcel Proust had never been to a big-box store before. He was dazzled by the sheer size and scope of the store and the seeming impassivity of the shoppers. So many products, so many shelves, such strangely intriguing examples of the human condition. The people seemed…

UNFINISHED

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In his dreams he was building a house. He wasn't sure if it was in the city or in the country. He wasn't sure. He thought, perhaps, it looked like the city but there seemed to be too many trees.

Practice Questions: Grade 7

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When the deer did come, I couldn't shoot straight. I didn't feel scared, but I didn't want to miss and my hand was shaking. I hurried. I held my gun pointing out at the path and fired. But it went a little wild and instead of taking the deer down, I shot

Watching the End of the World from the Beginning of a New Revolution

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We were always going to be here. This isn't thebig reveal. It's not even the best last joke. That's to come. Like the apocalypse that it always wants tobe, like playing with the big planet gods. Nothing says we're all doomed like another cold beer. Wave the…

My Neighborhood is F*cked Up

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There is a couple across the street who fight constantly. I feel bad watching them fight but they haven't had curtains since I moved into my new place and no one in this neighborhood can afford cable. I know that …

Untouched By Me, Alas!

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Another run-in with the police happened one night in Elmhurst. I was seeing this girl I'd met in my Shakespeare night class at Elmhurst College. She and I and Andy and a friend of hers, I think, were parked in front of her house, drinking a six pack of beer when her…

Bums of the Bird World

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Yeah, okay, so pigeons are the bums of the bird world So what are a flock of crows working over a wheat field while the artist Vincent is desperately trying to live with his bleeding ear or to sell at least one painting during

Book of Mountains

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Headsets screaming with suburban boredom