Most read stories

Old Soul

11421142 views55 comments55 favs

She’s an old soul who was scattered to the winds like a thousand butterflies and a moth She has no center and flits from event to event and can’t miss out on a thing, because crikey, what if she missed something important? And the m

sing your swan song

11421142 views44 comments11 fav

They had to dress normal, my other boyfriends, be beardless, hairless, everything torn away, plucked, shorn smooth, because it elicited moisture on the tongue (when I was with you.) But I grew bored as the day before I first saw you.

Black Wheat, 7

11421142 views11 comment00 favs

They use people then throw them away They are after the image There is a desperation in (it) They behave as if they must have it It must be a drug to them Are they that able? . . . They bring it over here and then all they want is im

Gather Round

11421142 views44 comments22 favs

When they first brought me home, I was their pride and joy. Then, one day, they put me in this wooden box.

There Were Giants Upon the Earth in Those Times and the Wickedness of Men

11421142 views88 comments22 favs

A pair of snakes contemplates gulping a pair of frogs.

Parables for Rodin

11421142 views66 comments22 favs

His beard is an eighteenth-century forest / in south central France

Sarah With The Warm Gun

11421142 views11 comment00 favs

The north street was always a mean part of Port Neches. Too far up for oil company patrols ...

A Matter Of Convenience

11421142 views00 comments00 favs

Every retailer within my five mile containment zone is consumed with my convenience. It is incredibly comforting, this suburban fixation with access, proximity, speed, and ubiquity. If Marx were hanging out in American subdivisions today, he would likely

Surf Song

11411141 views00 comments00 favs

Morning. A hot bright sun shines down on the cool dark depths of the deep blue sea.

The First Time. Maybe Our Second or Third

11411141 views44 comments11 fav

She sat me down naked on a kitchen chair and fucked me in the dining room, hovering over me, then sitting down on top of me I was upstanding It was outstanding, raw, and exciting No children or adults around, or dogs, cats or birds, no goldf

Executing the Trade

11411141 views66 comments55 favs

Prospero's in his cell and I'm in mine. He drowns his books, I'm drowning in mine. He exercises his power–I'm powerless to exercise.

Burn

11411141 views99 comments77 favs

No one believed me when I told them this: I took all of my novels and tossed them into the fire.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 53

11411141 views55 comments22 favs

—Francesco, said Zambrano, rising from his desk and putting his arm around Frank's shoulder. You and me, we're business partners. Regular capital crime buddies.

Hysteria

11411141 views1313 comments55 favs

My sacred boxes contained this information.

holy the valley

11401140 views22 comments00 favs

Apparently we must endure them forever, the gods. My willingness to live among them, and love, with their high-pitched voices. To endure or be endured equally, each one of the Fates, each one of the high hearers stammering out the certainty of their lov

keeping house

11401140 views00 comments00 favs

This is the house

At the Bend in the Road

11401140 views44 comments44 favs

I was at the bend in the road thinking of Robert Frost but there was no fork, there was no yellow wood, there wasn’t even a horse to ask me why or what if There was no decision to be made just a thousand tourists from Prague

Midnight in Arizona

11401140 views33 comments11 fav

I am in a war against the literal. I have sewn these words together to make a stand of birch. I wander the earth gathering moon shadows and swords. Kerosene dots punctuate the Dakota night. An apparition of words hops through a calculus problem and falls into a…

How Bruce Became a Lover of Key Lime Pie

11401140 views33 comments11 fav

He consumed the key lime pie, while wearing a lime-green sports bra.

Bloody Toe

11401140 views22 comments11 fav

Owen had never seen his boyfriend cry, but while he was in the bathroom having a cigarette through the open window, he heard Devin sniffling and coughing back tears. A bit shocked, he decided not to confront Devin or acknowledge that he had heard. Italian men could be…

Can I Get a New To-Do List

11401140 views33 comments11 fav

I got a male bouffant hairdo like Trump I can’t wait to develop patience And the next time I have a ringing in my head I’m not going to answer it Can I Get a New To-Do List? I tried changing my name to Richard Vixen Until the State Dept. too

mythical son

11401140 views33 comments22 favs

I would have given your son to you. I would have had him in a heartbeat. And I would have showed him your inner beauty, even though you were absent. I would have hidden nothing from his nature. I would have given him everything and anything he needed, s

Where Do You Get Your Poetic Inspiration?

11391139 views00 comments00 favs

The only magazine Auden subscribed to was Scientific American, a publication I had previously scorned as the trade journal of pre-med students and Nobel Prize winners.

LYCEUM IN RUINS

11391139 views00 comments00 favs

Weeds, schist, an Artesian well: élan in a heavenly forge. Sniffling goats, a mossy cairn. A portal divides the void. There is a human hand here below the crumbling parapet. The crotch of time A bridge between…

My Composite Girlfriend

11391139 views00 comments11 fav

Her dad regaled me with stories of his up-from-the-bootstraps climb out of poverty on the hard-scrabble, rough-and-tumble Lower East Side of New York, where he founded the leading supplier of hyphens to writers of purple prose.

Snow Angel in the Sand

11391139 views44 comments44 favs

"It goes to infinity and back.That is how much I love you".She looked down into the sandplopped down and made a snow angel,Pushing the mudwith her arm and legs,like windshield wipersof a caron a rainy day"Auntie ... Auntie,How much I love you".

Two More for Akutagawa

11391139 views22 comments22 favs

Heading for the fields one morning to paint haystacks, Vincent noticed his neighbor’s house ablaze.

It's Stupid, Stupid, What Will Become Of Us

11391139 views00 comments00 favs

Whoa! Whoa! This just in! You mean we were minutes away from some kind of immanent Greek tragedy!!? Let me get this straight. I cheated one time on Jolene with Jolene’s baby-sitter (you!), whom she used to cheat on her husband (with me)? I guess I’m luc

Kneecapping the Muse

11391139 views66 comments33 favs

In 1997, I was exploring a used bookstore in Camden, New Jersey, when I stumbled across a two-volume hardback copy of The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić, a book I had been meaning to read since it came out in 1984. At $10.00 for the set, I couldn't pass up…

Another One Night Stand in L.A.

11391139 views00 comments00 favs

This girl had burn scars on her body which hurt a little, to be touched, so we had to be real careful, gentle. I turned her over slowly so as not to shatter her. She wanted to be fucked, badly. But only one time. It was enough to be handled again like bef