Most read stories

Love At Last

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They shared a lot through the years – a bus stop, acne, and first kiss stories. George was happy to be her confidant, good enough friends to help shoulder her burdens. But he wanted to push her curls back behind her ear and trace her soft cheek with his f

Just One Sentence

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Blinking, Eleanor frowned at the words she’d uttered. They were absurd… foolish. Unequivocally unscientific, but beautiful nonetheless. The notion of the sunless hours embodied as a clumsy artist struck the student as interesting.

Flipper Avoids the Tuna Can

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I used to sneak away to my bedroom to write. I would get away any chance I could to jot down on paper my stories, my ideas, the rich stream of goodness that sprang from my little baby creative brain. It was pure joy.

Hearts in Exurbia

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Silent Murf was largely toothless, and the gaze from his eyes diverged in opposing directions; his skinny arms were a fancywork of jailhouse tattoos and what appeared to be scabbed-over claw marks.

Firefly Squids

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On the fisherman boat, we were told to place the helpless firefly squids in our mouths. I watched cheeks light up like light bulbs and I wondered how barbarism could be so beautiful.

Inner Charlie

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When Charlie woke up he couldn’t find his inner Charlie.

The Writer as Rapist

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She's at an artist colony in the state of Virginia. She's in her studio. She should be writing. That's what everybody thinks she's doing out here. Why else would she be in her studio alone at 3:00 a.m.? But there's an interloper. A new painter? Sculptor? Maybe he…

When Your Poem Becomes Self Aware

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Where will you hide? Because you know it Will seek you out for answers you might Only be asking for yourself. It Will send many students to stand outside Your apartment and chant your name. It will beg you to perform its birth Again to the…

What I find

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is every word is a small step takenaway from you that arcs back to me likea mamba's mouth. I'm not going aroundin place so much as running in circles. You can see my devilry here. You arethe truth here and that makes me the lie. You'renew morning. I'm much, much more…

The Case Of The Limehouse Golem

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Calmly I rang the bell for Mrs. Madison and sank with some relief onto the ottoman. In a crisis, a calm head and decisive action are called for. The housekeeper would surely know what to do.

What have you been doing with your life?

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Homegirl wanted someone to love her so much they could suicide together.

Florida

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In her paper, Emmeline compares Mary Todd Lincoln's crazy, which involved spending lots of money and going to séances, with her Aunt Janine's, which involves wearing cowgirl outfits and running with strange men.

Ants

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Her husband wouldn’t let her call an exterminator. That doesn't work, he said. The real reason he said no was that he was cheap.

Second Wife

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If things continue to go bad for her she will become second wife in six years.

Seishin

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The Japanese sun, blood-red and vibrant, like a Cézanne apple, was setting far away in the distance over the snow-capped peak of Mt. Fuji. For a moment, the intensity of the light blinded him. He could not see the road ahead. His front bicycle wheel wobb

Stevie Wonder

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Like Prince said one time, parties aren't meant to last. Guys who don't get the message are guys who die by the inch.

Charlotte's Nexus

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She sent painless electrical impulses through his neurons, and consequently, he lost the pathways that lead to memories of his experiments, memories he had reveled in during his most profound moments of desolation.

The Spirit Upwelling

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Too late, I feel a bite under my left heel, but before I can look, I blunder into Robert and Paul rolling across the bedroom floor. They knock me over like a bowling pin, and I grab Robert’s hands and try to pull them from around his father’s neck.

Glass Handcuffs

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Maybe it's a suicide clock, counting the drops of blood on the bathroom tile. A cancer clock counting the number of good cells still willing to fight. Maybe it's a justice clock, counting the remaining days of freedom you have left.

Poem for the Poet

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for Bill YarrowPoetry is a way of breathingagainst the enemy's chest withoutlosing consciousness again. Itis a ghost dance. Poetry is tobe determined by the plight of bees.Poetry is a waterfall ona mailing list. I've never tasteda finer whiskey than poetry.Poetry is half…

Whatever Happens

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When Matthew calls I'm sautéing garlic for the polenta and Joe is squeezing buttercream rosettes from a Ziploc bag onto a spice cake he made from scratch. Or trying to—we…

Passing Time

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A surreal conversation in a library hints at something else.

The Wind Chill Factor Kicked In

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People disappeared in the 70's—young girls, teenagers, they always said they ran away. Nobody really believed that the next-door neighbor was capable of that kind of horror. These two girls disappeared and the police had been digging up the farm of t

Legend

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My half-brother Salvy laughs each time we meet here at the hospital to visit our father Phil, who has lung cancer. He laughs because Phil married my mother, not his. He laughs at my job in Valhalla, the final resting place for those who lose at the…

The Messenger, Chapter 1

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It's hard to say who was the first to point a finger towards the sky. Maybe it was the cherubic overall-clad toddler perched on the shoulders of his father's worn brown leather jacket. Maybe it was one of the teenaged girls, their long straight hair whipp

The Egg

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It was spring. The stepmother brought her newish daughter to the toy store for a surprise.

Andrew

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Andrew didn’t need oil and neither did his mother. In fact, the only reason oil was on his mother’s mind was because it was the last thing on her mind. He did not get up to get it, and she did not protest.

Margaret’s Mermaid

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When she was eleven, Margaret still believed in mermaids. She would fasten the neon diving rings that her mother gave her to her ankles and swim around in the pool for hours. By the end of the afternoon, with chlorine-swollen skin she would wince as she…

Banana Republic

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I would love to believe that this poem might sell a poetry book

TRAFFIC JAM

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“No Jumping!” Med.z Tony says. I pull open my switchblade and dust off my shoulder.