Most read stories

Intake

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If I came home and she had peed, even after I walked her in the morning before I left, I would tighten up my whole face and shoulders, so I wouldn't hit her, and I would grab her by the tags collar, and I would hiss at her what she needed to know, what sh

Anaphylaxis

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I remembered our wedding reception. I tasted the crab cake, pulled her from greeting people, said, you have to try. And she did.

Left for Dead

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Bobby slowly raised his head above the emerald green stalks of rice and looked up and down the paddy for any sign of the men who had been crossing it with him, when the shell exploded. Movement out of the corner of his eye sent him face down in the muck a

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 51

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Francesco tried to fix Oriana's face in his mind as he blindly walked to the taxi queue.

He Invented Carbon Dating for Seniors, and Couch Potato Chips

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I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora, gray beard and long scraggly gray ponytail, who had empty chairs pulled up all around him, at the Loser Café, maybe for his imaginary friends, or maybe those who were already gone.

When the Sky Was Blue

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Michael shifted impatiently as his mom steadied the gyrocycle above the parking space. A rather blank, empty smile came over her face, and Michael understood. The Proctors were everywhere and where they weren’t, there was always a Neighbor who would be h

Even in the Same Room

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as you are, there's a big floating arm that separates both of us from each other. Widening, like a river, it touches us together often, but still keeps us drifting apart. The banks of your new life have different weeds and flowers…

How We Handle Our Midnights

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He fingered her lighter off the table during a party hoping she would come over and talk. She was just on the other side of the coffee table but the stereo was so loud, belly or dee lite or some other early 90's dance…

No Electricity

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I awoke mid-dreamAt that point between light and dark,East and west, young and oldThat no one knows or remembers.There was no electricity,No electric lights, no humming machinery.Only the sights and sounds of creationSpectacular in their simplicity.

Enemies Are Taken Care Of?

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A waiter at the café was saying “I’m opening the curtain here behind your back Is that okay?” “Go ahead,” I told him. “It’s all right” “Enemies are taken care of?” “They already got everything,” I said Suddenly both of us were laughi

Ordering Chinese

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And I'm usually soft-spoken.

Be Prepared

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I thought I would beThe standing champagne glassunmarked and gleamingThe sleeping silverParalleling matesInert as ChinaBut I was the catasleep on the rug

No.

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i try/to get/up but you prove/your strength.

Snopes

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“Did you check Snopes? I always check Snopes when I hear something stupid like that.” “I most certainly did not check Snopes. And it's not stupid. It's an established fact.” “Really? Cause once I heard about that kid from that old…

Still Single

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“Yes, Mother, of course I’m still single. No, I haven’t joined the Army. No, I’m not moving back home.”

Song Without Wonder

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What I’ve got is priceless, but no one wants it. Hmmm. I wonder if I can give it away, or have to haul it to the dump? What I have is priceless. Priceless. What I have is priceless, but no one wants it.

High Beings (including a few of the more mundane facets around)

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would absolutely love to hear from you singing as careless as a cat choir as you make your fingertip wishes well known to the dishwasher night,want you to be ever so playful with your environments as you please. While (those)…

Order

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Still worried. I could use some more hope in my oatmeal.

we were not deer

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The crescent moon lies with anyone (in case you wanted to know.) And the rain – as cheaply! I don’t think anyone knows this, when they are young. When you are young, very young, you want to be included in everything. “The young that the sea took, ki

Mike's Confession in the Basement to Being Allergic to Balls

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He arched an eyebrow.  He was "thinking" — a tricky thing to do, when you never read, even the newspaper.

on a long suburban plain

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We were stuck sweating it out on a long suburban plain when you left. Or else we’d mob the one visible hill (in Palos Hills, or Hillside) and turn the televisions on, looking behind us nervously, hopelessly, until every evening became a Wednesday evenin

Sequence Instead of Services on Sunday

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We reach for things and objects// made of ever smaller things and objects

Advice from the Receptionist

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The president is truculent today.

End Game

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Where the Story LiesEverybody wants to knowwhere the story lies. Does itlie in childhood? Does it liein old age? Does it lie in anangry outburst or a stingingrebuke? Does it lie in a momentof compassion or in the recognitionof calloused selfishness? Bruisedlove or…

Surge Of Green

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Already past the harbinger of yellow crocus

Kids in Commercials

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Hanna was so close to being one of those commercial kids. I mean, the commercial kids all kind of look like her anyway. They’re homecoming queen pretty, and have these dumb smiles like they know they’ll never be sad or poor.

the way you make me feel

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out in space/ platonic forms/ dazzle with/ voluptuous grace

Spare Parts

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Breaker's Yard Blues!

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

Flight

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They’re friends, him and Sissy and Raul, you know, and live upstairs from Asa and he went up there. He kept texting me saying, B here all night, follow u 2 airport. Yelled down through the floor. Real crazy shit.