Most read stories

Skins of my past

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The past follows, battered, bruised, always behind

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…

white lights

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the little white lights i see mean many different things to me

That Old-Time Religion

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The road to heaven is littered for miles with dead sinners, or more precisely, the sides of the roads are lined with crosses on which the sinners are nailed. It has always been so, since time started ticking for Civilized…

The Weight of Need

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In need of help, he bought his first self-help book at the age of twenty-nine.

Affair

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No clouds No rain

The Narrow Confines of Existence

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It seems like that is all I really knowThe narrow confines of my existenceThe sun rises and falls somewhere,And all living things, move, work struggle and fightCarrying a bucket of water, while the sunBangs the day's rhythm on my armsThere's a war going on, all the…

one for the runners

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it always takes too long to figure it out

The Confounded

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Your left hand cups your balls which are drawn up tight under a turgid fireplug cock. Your right hovers over your temple, thumb cocked at the cheek. Your eyes are dreamy, mouth wry, chest and belly furry and fat. You're a picture in a file on my desktop on which…

Retrospective with Mum

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I've brought a stack of old photo albums to the home with me. It'll be nice to go through them with Mum, I'm thinking.When I arrive she's doing her usual routine, where she sits silent for a time then bursts unprompted into laughter, lungs rattling, shouting at some…

Bottles of Happiness

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She sold bottles of happiness at the marketplace. She woke up at dawn every morning to capture rays of happiness in the air. She would jump and let her fingers thread through each ray before sorting them into bottles. She always added a red ribbon to the tops of each…

The Time of His Death

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…if something happened to you so horrible that you no longer felt like living, would it have been better if you had died at birth? Okay, that's probably too early. No reason to act in haste. Maybe you should die when you're eighteen years old, just before…

A Prayer for Adelaide

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Any God we could respect/ would listen, kind, to prayers,/ compassionate but resolute –

When Leaves Fall

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And then she'd wipe her eyes, sweep her hair between the crest of her left ear and the side of her face and press that ear to the knot.

Heroes

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no one told him there was a place where heroes died, but he should have known it was in love

BOLT-TOGETHER

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I will watch your teeth measure the highway all the way home.

Josh and the Elder

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A cruel reminder of his irrelevance to the world of law, a world he had probably ruled for over 40 years.

At the back of the crowd

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They were all celebrating something, but she couldn’t see what it was.

blowing

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elton wrings the melody from the words into the silent but pulsing air

Fall From Grace

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My usual angel fell from the ceiling and onto the couch.

Disparity

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These were strange realizations, and each built upon the one before until I was completely mystified and unsettled in my life.

My Darling Dead Ones

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Do you remember?

And then we... Part 3

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Well, Bainz' dad didn't kill us for stealing his bomb because one of the drug addicts at my house was a cop. At least he said he was a cop, or knew a cop, or had something to do with the cops. I don't know for sure. I know he didn't look like a cop, at least he …

From T.S. Eliot's Copybook

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Thanks for the invitation, although you don't make the Undergraduate Verse Society Ice Cream Social and Poetry Slam sound very appealing.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 29

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The funk of wet wool, stinky feet, reeking armpits, stale beer and fried food created a bohemian fetor.

A Hug from Rumpelbitchkin

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She shifts in her armchair, shadowed beneath the dark pitched roof, gently replaces her chipped white china teacup in its saucer. It's started again. It's how they go, their whisperings, egging younger children to climb the steps to her attic apartment, a

Music and Books

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You're all I've got to keep me company, but it's a very fine company. So familiar, and warm as any cold digital fireplace. I can tell you've got more in your story, but it doesn't make you happy. I really do not feel well today. Fun I wanted to…

Closedness

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We are / packed in a speck of dust / adrift across the universe, / revolving an ember.

Driving in Jeddah

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In suburban Jeddah magnificent houses on every corner of the avenues are surrounded by high walls rising up from just inside the roadside curb to much beyond taller than a man.

women in labor

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I am like a spice in wind, warm and gentle on the face, a reminder of your youth, tried and true. Lick the trapped silk from my soul, is all I am saying, with your high language. Get the core out of me and turn it under your tongue. Why shouldn't the egg