Most read stories

Sanctimonious Substrate

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If there were a time and a placefor meaningless, purposeless meandering,useless content that goes nowhere, without pretension or intent,filigree and ornament.Something to while away the hours,waiting for the dependencies of life,the requirements and the directionsof…

Brewing

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...classic rock vibrating the walls...

Yes Virginia, There is a Trustee in Bankruptcy

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“I thought bankruptcy was for people who didn’t have any money.” Skipper said. “Not exactly. It takes a lot of money to go broke,” I said, hoping to teach him an important lesson about thrift.

Night Letters from the Underground

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As ghosts, they became lovers. Rodion would strum the Underwood keys like a balalaika. Lizaveta would sing.

Demons

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Michael had become quite accustomed to his morning routine. He woke at seven, made his coffee, and stepped onto the front porch with a steaming cup and a fresh cigarette. He sat there for ten minutes or so, watching the neighborhood prepare for their d

Unfinished

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there are monsters in my bed

3.8 in Chicago

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A 3.8 magnatude earthquake ravages Chicago suburbs.

Wild Oats v. Shredded Wheat

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Written across an old geezer’s sweatshirt At the Farmer’s Market in L.A.

Wet Moses Cement

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If you’re trying to carve wise sayings for eternity to read in a newly poured sidewalk you don’t want to be struggling for meaning while the cement is wet.

Boy In

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If it were certainly troubleThe light would shine through a bubble---I add the s, a “must confess”If I'm blowing you up with anger. Do deliverhigh fives, or two fingers towards the skyThe rest in a depression (the little blues)Will do. To carry you on my arms,…

Fungi light/ Fungi Language

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I'm sitting in the dark of my own kitchen, because it is dark outside, not from night but from clouds. I guess that's where I'll start talking from. This isn't about you. I'm not sure it's even about me. It's probably about the…

vast dance of the darling soul

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Was it only for the vast dance of the darling soul, that you were born? Not to give up your genetics? Made for the use of the future, were you? I should have known. I heard the wind that swirled within you, even then, when we were so young. You were

Eating Crow

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I stabbed a man at the Blue-Buick Bar and Grill. This may not be shocking news, all things considered. The man I stabbed didn't think it was all that shocking, even while it was happening. I'd had a lot of those energy drinks -- six or seven -- even before I'd puked…

A Day in the Life of a Nutcracker Ticket Scalper

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Talk about the Nutcracker–my nuts are cracking from the cold cause it’s freezin’ out here! But a guy’s gotta make a buck, and scalpin’ ballet tickets in sub-zero weather pays the bills.

God, the Father

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I was right to fear the God of my father He is a monster.

No Exit: Fantasy Football Edition

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Tony's is just a hole in the wall since most people get their sandwiches to go. There's a skinny counter, which was last wiped down during the second Clinton administration, and three tiny tables crammed into a corner.

Spiritual Awareness

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Amir was a ghost, and he was terrible at it. No one had taught him how to be a ghost. There was no orientation, no welcome packet, no handbook. Ghosts started in limbo with only a name, and nothing else.

and they are really living!

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These people, what is it with them? Is this who we’ve become? They left their great need behind when they were taken out of the country. They seem to live without thought of that blood. They do not respond to anything that calls to it. They seem sha

A Portraiture of Circling Back (or Why I Hate Fashist Assholes Like Mohandes Gandhi)

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"In the shit the dogs circle, talking of a dead bitch, maybe Merkel" - Michelangelo's poem of a stultified flower that never emulsifies, an orange California poppy of pink-gold drenched in urine and a horse in either burns bright whinnies and trollops neigh a pipping…

A Slippery Slope

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a distinct hardness that translates into solidity, and a lightness that translates into beauty, and I thought I’d find you there,

Frankly, I'm Not Doing Well

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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.…

Home Movie

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One hand holds the string-like railing; the other holds a bright silver toaster.

A FEELING OF FOREBODING

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Part I I look down at the milk soaked, fabricated, Bits of synthetic nutrition and The feeling comes over me. I race down the highway in my gas guzzling, Smog belching, status symbol and still The feeling overtakes me. I look at my precious offspring, I see…

Your Pet & Vet Conciliator

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There is no love triangle more tangled than that which snares a pet, its owner and an amorous veterinarian.

Things You Should Know, By Heart, If You Must

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The light is always on in reality The Gelatinous Mass is not something made up By the Catholic Church And even though a small deer may have come to the side of the road once To lick the salt from your wounds There will definitely be cheap fish

Longing of the Broken-Hearted

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I remember sitting on the screened-in front porch of my house on Illinois Street that summer that we met. I had just come up from school at downstate Illinois. I remember eating a peach and listening to the sounds in my neighborhood, just listening. The

Do You Ever Really?

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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…

Soft Serve

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Smooth slope-topped plateaus Turn liquid as latex, With ridgelines of pearls That separate and run At the rigidly textured Patterned wafercone. Edible scepter, Its liquefying cap Is strictly temporary And mostly…

The Small of Her Back

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The small of her back, where the downy hair stands upright like wheat in the summer light.

Knowing the Ending

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“No!” Shouted Jon. “I don't get it!” Clarissa stared at her hands in her lap and tried not to cry. She knew it was her fault they were there. She was the one who cheated. But she could not understand why Jon wanted, no needed, to…