Most read stories

Clockwhipped

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I now felt prepared to waltz under a K bullet that hits a stucco brick above the tropical hibiscus.

Playground

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The Keds-stubbed grass, toy trucks without wheels, and Band-aids threaded in the sand… Most parenting is vigilance. Seconds ahead of its own sound, a passenger jet spears the heights not far above the treetops, …

David and Big Bird

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Hot sweaty bodies slam into each other to get aboard the overflowing subway car. I struggle to wedge myself though the sliding doors, bracing for more bodies to press against mine. The passengers in front of me suddenly stop and fan out.

Bright Red Leaf

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Little scoundrel Name of leaf, No one knows He's a thief. The shadows stretch, The birds fly south, And summer's a word Of ash in the mouth When all of a sudden The colors are gone But for a red…

"Dial Back the Snark" Speakers Scramble for Limited Gigs

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“‘Dial Back the Snark’ is an attempt to fight the cynicism that’s corroding America’s social fabric,” Myers says, mixing his metaphors. “It’s spreading like wildfire."

Lift

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He repeated Honey, I miss you. He could be cruel. He let their son chase his kite for hours in the park while he sat between two tourists on their way out of the city just last week. He could hear her now, running a bath for herself, forgetting John's Apple Jacks before…

August and After Haiku

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The brown grackle chirps/ as she chomps a plump cricket-/ melodious meal.

WHAT IS PAID FOR

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The lock came off easy—they only screwed a hinged hasp on the outside—it took a hard shove to get past a chair barricading the door. As I pushed my way in I heard a screeching crash. Lucky nobody was around. It was my first time bidding on a sheriff's sale…

A New Woman

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George didn’t move when Cindy punched him in the nose. He just stood up and walked to the fridge, poured a glass of water and dropped a few ice cubes into the glass. The ice cracked in the glass as he walked back to the couch.

On Tuesday

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

How Filthy the Human Mouth

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When he saw me, he jumped faster and faster, wild like something rabid.

When Do We Breathe?

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You deserve air.

Not Particles but Waves

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not in the interest of verisimilitude/ for there's plenty of that in each day already/ as trajectories interrupt other trajectories

Nehwareven

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In the switched-off time of day's blackest rest-

hump daze

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Before you start reading this it is important that you understand that I know nothing about the evolution of horses or camels. I mean, I literally know zilch about which came first or if they are even part of the same family. In my head I imagine one of those charts…

Wading

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Through feeling her life story, I understood mine, more,

End of Wendell

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...though in reality it is a dirty white with brown splotches now appears to him as a fluorescent green garden snake.

Resident

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You will know the country for fences, for feces, for cows, or, You will know the country for the smell of hay and manure blowing over the hills to you.

Conversations in a Chinese Restaurant

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I'm feeling almost better than you know A little bit better than the day before Waking up to a deafening scream Please, please don't hurt me no more Why do I feel like a lost dog? Staring outside the window pane How come I become dark? When the clouds begin to rain…

The Game Show Support Network

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Those who have lost at game shows meet each week for mutual support. All is well, until they start disappearing in ways related to their ill-fated appearances as contestants.

she used to be really wild. she's calmed down a lot

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I remember distinctly the first time I saw Lynda. She was not a stunning-looking girl by any stretch of the imagination. She was short, with naturally blond Swedish hair that she wore in a long ponytail that dropped down her back. It was freezing outs

London Calling

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Bloomsbury crowd

Why Don't You Just Take Off Your Top

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You were there at the beginning almost, when I wanted to write about the dead spider I smashed on my bedroom wall, comparing it to the blue/grey smoke of the blown-off fireworks drifting overhead.

chelsea wolfe

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exiled from hell where no torture could touch you to a cloud in heaven where no…

Gauntlet

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They bury their own.

An Exquisite Fall From Grace

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He lay on a wooden pallet, which he had placed inside a cardboard box that might have once held a refrigerator. Except the box was labeled “Robotic Endoscopic Surgery System.” His head was propped on a gym bag that contained all his possessions. Outside, it…

birdbrain

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feathered flightless freak of nature

MOMENT

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It was a cruel question, coming on breath that stank of the grave.

Always / Never

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"... A set of vertebrae disintegrate and a woman falls face first into her dinner plate."

Right Here on Our Stage...Tonight

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When Madeline became beset with a malady diagnosed as Harlequin's Syndrome she had to learn to overlook the muffled, but audible, guffaws about her excessive perspiration and slightly stooped posture on stage. She was a trooper and said she knew they came from those who…