Most read stories

For Your Consideration

10471047 views22 comments22 favs

Are there places that words cannot go? Consider words going where they were never intended to go.

Brooklyn Bridge

10471047 views11 comment00 favs

I’m walking funny but only comedians notice.

Morning Concerto

10471047 views55 comments33 favs

the continuous racket, a buzz saw trumpet

Do You Ever Really?

10471047 views11 comment00 favs

The pavement was so hot, it burned the souls of my feet. I really thought they would blister, but they rarely did. I would try to walk on the grass, between driveways. Carrying that large bulky box. I would hear the the slap, slap, slap, of some of the other…

Kitchen Consciousness

10471047 views00 comments00 favs

she's bent over and reaching into the oven to pour fat over a chicken. I just want to tug those pants down and thrust.

Rise, Awake and Sing

10471047 views00 comments00 favs

Rise, Awake and Sing“Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust”(Isaiah 26:19)A medieval town where nothing stands straight,where Kafka sat, slept, ate. Where timereads backwards on a Hebrew clock and a Golemwaits in…

Trick Horse

10461046 views66 comments33 favs

The trick rider arches

8 zero+1 scarring digits tic toc glossie phanein and coy constellations or blood by boards avadhoota where no divine mthrs stay

10461046 views11 comment00 favs

I am seven and it is in one of those spring stretches where temperatures proceed enough to make walking acceptable if not amicable. Pop cans and chip bags once boasting glossy surfaces and daring hues now faded to match asphalt fields. Other bits of things…

Walking Green

10461046 views22 comments00 favs

1. There is a crowd of people walking to a field and since there are over forty of them, the conversations become divided and then subdivided in accordance w/natural rhythms. I follow behind. It is a football game. Makeshift. Twenty aside roughly. Almost every…

a little passion among them

10461046 views22 comments11 fav

A reddening? A certain swelling, a little passion among them, is there? What lips would not have given what they could, to speak more boldly, more fondly of you now? But now the country is fastened to arrogance, welded to it in an evil way, wanton with violent…

just one more time, God, I promise

10451045 views00 comments00 favs

The last time I was with Terry, she surprised me by crossing herself just before we had sex. She too had been going out with this Mario pimp, with his ski boat out on Fox River. The guy who was going around sniffing after most (if not all) of my old gir

Drunken Terrorists Act

10451045 views99 comments44 favs

They asked each other at Court-suggested AA meetings: What can Texas do but throw us in jails already packed with low-life scum?

whose soul do you have?

10451045 views00 comments00 favs

Whose soul do you have, now? (How many are you?) There are several around here running from death, laughing, whom you might know. I burned ahead, with life. I found my own haughtiness had little bearing on the unbraided thread of pleasure (when I wa

Toad

10451045 views11 comment11 fav

“I come from a long line of Toad Kings,” Huckleberry said, “and we never back down from a bet.”Phyllis, a great white heron, lowered her long white neck so she could get a better look into her friend's golden eyes.“I just think you…

Celes' Most Important Question

10451045 views00 comments00 favs

This was a word Celes had not ever heard before. "Ethics?" "Ethics is… Well, let me see how to put this." He put down his fork for a moment and thought before continuing. "Ethics is the study of the form of what is right and what is wrong."

Two Drunken Elves Don't Know a Good Hobbit When They See One

10451045 views55 comments55 favs

Wait for it. It's not the end of the world, it's the end of certain things. It's not that the sky is falling, it's that the coral reefs are dead or dying. I don't know how the ravaged trees have managed to survive this long with us breathing…

Ice Cream

10451045 views00 comments00 favs

"Great jog today," he said, "But the entire length of the run I'm thinking about ice cream and how good that is going to feel."

This End of History: Day 94

10451045 views77 comments55 favs

Crashing icons.

At Schwartz's

10451045 views55 comments22 favs

Sometimes he made a corny joke and smiled. The gold in his tooth glowed like sunshine. He was the most important man in my life.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 4

10451045 views11 comment11 fav

“So, vot you think?” Vladimir asked us. “You want to come see these paintings? This is once in lifetime chance. Not many left who know about these. And I know where they are.” All the while he kept looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdroppin

Ambient

10441044 views00 comments00 favs

I try to make conversation by showing her the washing instructions for the jeans I just bought for $375.00. She reads slowly. “What, do they assume you live in Australia or something?”

Boring Boy

10441044 views55 comments11 fav

Deslauriers taught that of the five derogatory items a girl could be—bitch, slut, tease, frigid, whore—tease was the worst. Having a German Shepherd at home protected Liz. My family had a cat, female and black.

My Girl

10441044 views00 comments00 favs

I like you,But I don'tLove youAnd that bitchDon't love youEitherWhy don't you loveMe?I only love my sonWhat do you hate About me?I hate your nervousnessLack of confidence,I hate your glasses,U asked too many QuestionsReally?Yeah, reallyWhat do like about me?I like…

Why Is This Woman Smiling?

10441044 views22 comments11 fav

I was at the doctor’s office They had a poster of the Mona Lisa and the caption underneath it read: “Why is this woman smiling?” Well, it wasn’t because she was over 50 and had yearly mammograms It was because she was 20 something

He Dreams of a Small Boat at Sea

10441044 views44 comments33 favs

He dreams again of ocean devoid of shore

Counting the Stars

10441044 views66 comments44 favs

Everybody's trying to just not get killed. Cut flowers. It's an illusion. The grand smell of our deathly beauty. They were so afraid of the ghost dance once upon a burning time that they decided on murder to get it to stop. Those were the days. That's…

Let's Do It In the Mud

10441044 views44 comments11 fav

Then I got another letter, but this time it was from my friend Andy, warning me that he’d seen Miller riding around with Lynda, driving her grandparent’s Dodge with Lynda sitting right up against his side, and his arm was around her. I saw red. I went

The Last Remaining

10441044 views11 comment11 fav

Barry Gibb, the last remaining brother of the trio to make up the once popular disco band, the Bee Gees, comes out for his encore, to sing a cappella, “Stayin' Alive.”

how gravity keeps time

10441044 views22 comments22 favs

into the Zone of Avoidance gazes sink/ ―and why not? a black hole at the heart of it,/gravity attracts even our vision when/ we lift our gazes . . .

Frankly, I'm Not Doing Well

10431043 views11 comment00 favs

TW: Self-harm. I wanted to write a mental health essay that wasn't all rah! rah! and with as little sentimentality as possible. Out of everything I've published, I've gotten the most feedback from this--people telling me it helped them understand a loved one better, etc.…