Most read stories

My Ten Chapter Memoir

11711171 views00 comments00 favs

I am always impressed with your intelligence. I love watches. I'm not interested in time. I am well read so talking to myself can be fun.

People Get Haircuts

11711171 views22 comments22 favs

like they are trying to not get noticed by fickle death. It clearly marks them in a targeted way. Very ironic. Here's the only message I want you to ever have from me : quick, scramble like a monkey with a stolen banana in your tiny hairy…

Blue Rage

11711171 views44 comments22 favs

His small hands grew unimaginable vitality as he pushed and heaved against the strength of the ocean and it's depths and it's ruthlessness.

Hide and Seek

11711171 views44 comments33 favs

In September she had been wise.

Runt Of the Litter

11711171 views11 comment00 favs

I remember so many things … do you remember who I am yet? I attached pictures to jog your memory, including the house on Euclid where I lived. That’s my high school graduation photo. I was wearing my hair short that year, and blonde and natural,

Mountain godfather

11711171 views77 comments55 favs

“Look them straight in the eye, keep your mouth shut unless spoken to, and make no sudden moves.”

Exoskeleton

11711171 views33 comments11 fav

Watching himself dissolve comes with no sense of meaning. It is simply what it is. He finds that curious.

One Man's Post

11701170 views22 comments11 fav

There was a bottleneck ahead. We slowed down single-file, me behind, to wait our turn to pass the doorway of a vacant storefront church. In it, a lone black man sat atop an empty plastic milk crate. Nobody looked at him; they were all slowing down and cro

Bob the Builder

11701170 views33 comments00 favs

The concrete guy’s truck is parked in front of your house. There’s nothing for him to be doing there except your wife.

From Day One

11701170 views55 comments11 fav

On the first night I met you, you fell in love with the waitress. She had a loud voice and a strong Irish accent. She wore an oversized t-shirt to minimize her large breasts, and baggy jeans. No makeup; crooked teeth. But you…

Hospital, or Depression III

11701170 views88 comments55 favs

Yes sir, I confess there have been timeswhen I did not care how young the earth isor take pride in how she sprang back to greenregardless of how hard the snow fought.There have been times, yes, when I lacked the willto notice such things and knew that belowthe water's…

Swings

11701170 views00 comments00 favs

My backyard was first Grass tickling my bare feet Skipping along the bottoms of my toes. I broke my arm there; I always hurt myself Swinging. The fair was next, grownup kids Having adult fun Eating carnival food and drinking grownup things When no one was looking. …

Five Million Yen: Chapter 62

11701170 views22 comments00 favs

She was wearing a robe, but her hip movement sent an ancient message.

The Pain of Memory

11701170 views22 comments00 favs

It's awfulYou remember everythingYou never forgetEvery insultEvery bruiseEvery scarEvery burnEvery nickEvery blow You never forgetI never forget The pain of memoryYou think you forgetBut you never forgetThe dread of some wholly misfortuneThe pain that left you…

Kicking Out the Enjambs

11691169 views66 comments33 favs

I can be iambic when I want to / be!

Jacob Ellis

11691169 views22 comments22 favs

My name is Jacob Ellis. I was thinking about school and all those years and years and how they go eventually away but always remain somewhere in the mind as if imprinted on an akashic record. I was dizzy there, dizzy with dread and always on the verge of falling.…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 56

11691169 views22 comments11 fav

Airports are always a casino, said Oriana

New Year's Resolution

11691169 views22 comments00 favs

“Hey, come on and sit down,” Jake motioned to her. It was three in the morning and after way too many gins the last thing Melisa wanted to do on New Year’s Eve was to chat with her ex-boyfriend. In fact if she had known he was goin

002

11691169 views33 comments00 favs

there are nights when you're all alonein the darkwhere the only lightis the glow of the computer screenand words can't seem the scratchthe surface of your skulland bit by bitthe sentences, phrases, and lettersattached to your synapsesdrownin your subconscious

Ode to Tomorrow

11691169 views11 comment00 favs

If luscious lips lusted for love lost, they wouldn't be mine.

The Cook

11691169 views33 comments22 favs

“She said I hurt her and my father, the both of them.” Rose patted her round belly, carried high and in front, likely a boy. “I can see that.”

WHAT I LEARNED IN HEBREW SCHOOL

11691169 views77 comments66 favs

There was a big pile of dirt in back, where the little Hebrew School bochurs would play King of the Mountain—tugging, tearing, biting, punching, using whatever weapons they could get their tiny hands on to topple whoever scrambled up the mound first.

Dangling Participles

11691169 views00 comments00 favs

Flies as big as raisins sucked spit off his lip as he slept. Not sleep in the strictest sense of the word because guys like him don't sleep, they merely avoid life between rampages. And this guy, well, he's gonna wish he'd avoided life a bit longer because when he…

In the Month of Halloween

11691169 views22 comments11 fav

Did you ever have a morning when you just did not want to wake up? Sleep can be marvelous, but dreams not so much. If you believe, here is a tale. "She was awakened by the mushing of her pillow around where her head lay squarely on it. It was not violent,

Why Don't You Just Take Off Your Top

11681168 views00 comments00 favs

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.

Florence, of Irvine

11681168 views22 comments00 favs

she said, point blank, “Can you help me? I need a lover, and a friend.” “I can be both,” I said. I don’t know, I just opened my mouth and out it flew. You don’t even stop to think what you might be saying at a moment like that. I mean, she knew I was s

Proceed here to read some of my work

11681168 views00 comments00 favs

http://jrleyvas.net

Handiwork

11681168 views44 comments00 favs

People speak of wordsmiths, as if they hammer text into shape; smelting down clunky prose, recasting from white-hot ink.

THE ROOF NEEDS REPAIRED & ALL YOU CAN THINK OF IS RAIN, RAIN, RAIN

11681168 views00 comments00 favs

no, you said. like how the moon strangles with the side we can't see.

Deliverance

11681168 views55 comments44 favs

Bleeding quietly