Most read stories

Heart Apart

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Yes, I had pulled my own heart apart Yes, I had slipped up on time itself In its own backyard behind my memories And scared the crap out of it By not yelling, just sniffing at its neck Longingly, tearing it apart with my teeth Wishing I had

Answers Without Questions

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My father did not die before I was born. That much I can cite as not only fact but an absolute necessity to my existence. However, my father is dead. You can wrap as much sentiment and emotion around it as you wish, but you can't get away from the blunt…

This Is Not Your Poetry

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Your begging hands are hacking me up again like garden claws that know not the difference between a delicate solar powered flower and a tightening choke of killing weeds.It's not like it's even mine to keep-- like a legal document I'd…

A Question for the Gods

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She reached out her arms and spoke to the moon, "I ran from my fears, from loving too soon." She gazed at the heavens and cried to the stars, "I could not promise him all of my heart." She wiped away her tears and laughed at the trees, "Not a soul on this earth would…

Someday

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He called himself Theodore Birdwhistle.

Firecracker to the Dome

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pulling my bones apart, fingers are supernatural beings

On Tuesday

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When they talk, they put their hands like a cup around their mouth

no one answered

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I knocked on all the windows, on all the doors. No one answered. The television was glowing. I went around behind your house and saw it through the curtains, blowing in. (I knew you were hurting.) Knocked and tried the sliding glass door, the flimsy scr

a confession

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a pit-bull or a rottweiler or something like that

Mo Bands

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Beeswax Just Kill Me Beam Me Up Deep-Fried Twinkie End of Lust Hootchie and the Eye Patch Boy Crazy Instant Success Sleeping Geezers Cyber Shoes

Old, Broken Toys

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A boy sits in a room filled with old, broken toys. A mother is in the next room reading Cosmopolitan, dreaming of a life that should have been hers. There is the zoo and an unnecessary stroller on a very humid day, beads of sweat dripping slowly down a face. A trip to the…

A Day at the Fair

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“You just missed that last time,” the carney was saying as Sue Ellen walked up. “Give it one more try and I’ll bet you get your girl a big teddy bear. C’mon.”

Excerpt: Reykjavik: A Novel

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2. Reykjavík - 1986 …

Robins

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Pine nerves spike and row.

So then she says

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She says that she’s a prisoner in her own life, and if she wants to get drunk at two in the afternoon with a bunch of union men, then she’ll do it. She says I am welcome to go fuck myself.

Lineage

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the arc of her invective presumably aimed at the little boy and girl ambling halfway down the block behind her

NOLA's Nightcap

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I need to be commended, despite the wine glass that threw itself at your sister's head of rollers. Imagine a pear in the deli meat aisle ripening behind glass...

woman having her hair combed. Degas

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The nude woman sits straight back, with her hand indented in the flesh at her hip, bracing herself as the comb is pulled through her long hair, with her breasts thrust forward into the light.

The January Oak

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tiny banners, browned/ and wrinkled by time,

All The World's Cold

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An officer appeared and told us that we were already dead. We were already ghosts. As soon as you realize this, there is nothing to fear.

Secondhand: Four Inscriptions

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To whoever reads this next--Henry James makes my head hurt.

TOUR GUIDES (Granada Studios 1989)

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Dancers, dunces and brides-to-be

.38

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His name was Gino. I’ll leave out the last name, not that I think it matters anymore. He came into my dad’s gas station on the near North side of Chicago to have work done on his fancy car. I was still a teenager. I accidentally opened the glove compartme

A Political Man

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There's a potent multimedia declaration Flying eagles starred and striped Mocking cartoon independence Where every promise shines Not every veteran's hero Chequered drug misuse Glorious public relations Concealed a…

Storytime with E. E. Zulkoski

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...afraid of cancer, fire, floods, famine, being audited by the IRS....the list goes on and on....

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 42

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If I start getting rambunctious, put me in a cab.

First Law Blues

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Energy is constant though it may manifest/ as dust motes atop the housing of your monitor/ and in the fibers of the filter of your fan coil unit

and now for the news ...

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nope. no excerpt for you.

The Last Last Ride

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You’d stay on this small roller coaster ride all summer long if you could and if I were a rich man, I would let you. Is it fun riding around in circles? You’re only nine; of course it’s fun.

The Little Engine That Shouldn't (a political metaphor)

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The rings on the engine Not designed for race gas Did allow for some seepage Did allow fuel to pass The fumes were quite powerful To the pan they did charge The spark was quite forceful The explosion was large