Most read stories

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 Poetry Section

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In the poetry section, no one talks except to say, "excuse me," or, "wow," or, "amazing," with the second 'a' stretched out like a blacktop highway. But mostly they say, "excuse me." and that's only because someone dressed in a corduroy jacket is …

Dust

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It was the absence of small sounds he felt most. The clink of a spoon against china, a floorboard’s distant creak, the swish of that old, broken-toothed comb through her hair. A thousand tiny sounds that had proved he wasn’t alone.

Resurrection

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The superhero is out there in the fields, discovering herself.

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…

The Calendar of Minutes

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He was prepared for this event.

My Darling Dead Ones

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Do you remember?

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.

How The West Was Won

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I looked through the window of my shop here in Laredo and saw him standing there with his six-shooters drawn as I sized him up from his head to his toes. A ten-gallon, weathered black hat sat atop his head and a worn pock-marked and sun-bleached, denim shirt criss-crossed…

BOLT-TOGETHER

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

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.

Bohemian eyes

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I know I was hungry. I was hungry for what you had to offer, your fast cars, your dad’s ski boat, your beautiful mouth and its pretty words, your Bohemian eyes and yes, for the joy you could give me between the legs. But I was unprepared for the lif

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.

Listen to the Wind

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Long ago, when I was a child, like you, my grandfather told me about the wind. He pointed to a willow whose branches were dancing in the breeze and asked me what I heard. “Just the wind,” I answered. He smiled and ran his hand acr

Tuna Salad In Cat Heaven

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I ate a tuna salad sandwich for lunch.

Jim

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Jim twisted the skinny trunk of his body in a fast, violent jerk just as the cop grabbed the buckle of his left Harley Davidson boot. When the boot flopped off, Jim found himself sitting upright, ready to jump up and run. But then he felt the baton lock down on his…

Cider Spake, BÄÄ!

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no matter how many drunks I spoke to, no matter how many strangers I tried my new theories on, no matter how many of my, currently distant friends I out-witted and educated with my revelatory nuggets of wisdom, I still see no sign of impact on the evening

Opposites Attract

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It was the same table they met and fell in love.

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.

Writer's Block? Get Nacreous!

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If you have writer’s block, it may be because your childhood wasn’t unhappy enough, but there’s nothing you can do about that now, is there?

confetti

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i’ve started writing these things down on blue-lined notebook paper or really anything i can get my tendonitis-ridden hands on.

The Pitted Leg

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Pick, pick, pick. Scabrous flesh comes off. Goes into mouth. Picking like a drone. This is my leg. It tastes a little salty. Iron apparent. Partner sits across the room, on his laptop, begging. I can't stop widening the pit. Partner goes to kitchen, eats…

Suspicious Activity

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I go down to pick up R and get a cartridge of black ink for the printer. It's an extremely pleasant summer day — early afternoon — and the air is exemplary: clear and sweet. So far so good. But as soon as I park and go to a nearby cash machine the fun begins.…

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.

The Cuervo Gold and Clorox Blues

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I try to keep myself from weeping. We are all actors in a bad dream, that doesn’t go away in the morning

Orpheus and Eurydice

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This is hell amongst the bloom and grow. Spring's warmth is cruel, a feast of unrestraint...

Fall Guy

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Friends of the bride feeling out of place like a church key at a wedding

A Prayer for Adelaide

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

Floozy Walks Into a Bar

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Floozy Walks Into a Bar Toting a handbag the size of a small suitcase Because you never know Floozy Walks Into a Bar Dragging her reputation behind her And everyone looks behind her too Floozy Walks Into a Bar To test the temperature of

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 …