Most read stories

Erase Her

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I wake up in the morning and write her name on the white paper napkin I always place in front of me at the kitchen table as I have my first cup of coffee. I write it throughout the day. Twelve or fifteen times. I've done this for exactly twenty-three days. I always…

The Apostate

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A crone dressed in black pours liquid from a bottle onto the egg. Whiskey. Gasp! The egg cooks before our eyes!

Allergic Reactions #1: Sun

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Well I too woke up and felt bitterly alive once more;outside there was this shining fish scale attack sunliterally smashing itself against the window like a crazed yet determined yellowbird of paradise but it just couldn't smack through the little rows of…

Cupcake Footprint

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once wedding cake under pillows. now fluffy frosting on squashed defeat

Lawyer Doctor

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When we're near, there is a black cloud, such as Sylvia Plath described in her unabridged journal, that semi-appeared in her rental cottage where she and Ted Hughes lived in Cornwall. The cloud filled the center of the room where she sat alone.

Reckless/ Abandon

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He shows a wreaking disregard for the safety of others

The Boy in the Sandwich (novel excerpt - children's)

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I was getting ready to eat a thick peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich when a blue spider pushed up a corner of the bread from the inside and said, "Don't chomp, don't chew! We're in here, we're having a good time, and we don't feel like being eaten.

HOMELESS OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

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Only the occasional kindness of a stranger,// The curve of his back, a slope rushing past me,// Is luminous, the coin pressed in my hand . . .//// And yes, I beg.//// I open my palm// As Jesus did.//

Mostly I Want to be Walking

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by myself next to just one wide-eyed moment of wild blued out ocean. You know the one I mean. I don't want to have to speak to you, or even- alone- to myself. I'd like to be left inside the poem it makes me feel without having to get up and pee every…

Confessions of a Non-Believer

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Closing my eyes, I try to breathe it all in, absorb the divine presence that is supposed to be here. Faith by osmosis. I guess it doesn’t work that way. God has to be here. Why else would these people be here? Why else would the congregation return w

Slaloming the Siphoners

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Hipster-neutral dressed simulacra-person offers a glance and a wave, sudden as a ping-pong serve, designed to crowd your space and "pal" you but I dodge it — I'm practiced at this.

Three Micros

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The Cheese Maker's Son; The Pretenders; Train Whistles in the Wintertime

Black Coffee

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“I don’t see how anybody could do it.” “I could do it. I could do it because it ought to be done. When a thing needs doing, it’s best to go on and do it.”

The Vorpal Blade

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Pow! I shoot him through his jelly donut.

My VaJayJay, The Homing Pigeon

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"The problem is, sometimes my pigeon wants to fly somewhere new- to the beach or south for winter. Other times, my pigeon wants to steal someone else’s lunch or picnic with a stranger’s leftovers. Often, my pigeon wants a good show and some freedom, to be

Cinderella's Lament

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My name is Wanda McClure and I lived in the foothills of Eastern Kentucky. A small town miles off the interchange, and mostly in the middle of nowhere. I lived in a trailer. I was 52 years old.

Corvus

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Bracing himself against the wind, Zach gets to his feet without a thought for direction or destination. In the white forever of this place, there is no lantern to light the dark and bitter woods of memory. Even the croakers would find little use for such

Fall Apart Stuff

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He is snoring inside the silo of his throat. The inside there shines golden but that’s not the truth. There is something caught below the gold.

Finger Weaving A Voyageur Sash

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Night's air awhirl, the sky shoots fireflies. Sometimes, she bleeds black arrows in her dreams.

Self Portrait as a Drowned Man

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The light, oblique and waning, filters through butcher’s paper to reveal a body suspended in death but never decomposing.

I Confess to God in the Shower

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During fifth grade, I was called / closeted queer and tall faggot.

Parking Garage

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It's that quiet comfortable darkness. One should feel it often and necessarily.

War

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We borrow a flag from a neighbor. It’s sitting on top of the TV in the den. We haven’t figured out where to display it yet.

BY THE BEACH

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(wc) 55 words, exact.

Corporal Punishment

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When I was a little boy, I had a thing about women’s behinds.

What Literary Rejection Letters Would Mean In The Real World

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I ask for your patience with this form message, as it is part of a system that ensures every submissive ex lover is considered separately, since I am involved in a lot of anonymous sex.

Golden State

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The first door on the right is the bedroom. Even if I try to forget; my body remembers and the strength of its yearning fairly pulls me inside. I noticed you left the door ajar. Really you should be more careful.

Treading Water

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I was nine when I saw my first dead body.

Rule Out Euthymia

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In her belief that Juni is lucky, Jade eases the horrors our mother suffers at night, not because Juni is stuck in a physical passion, but because the whole family and whole groups of strangers know what Juni is doing for sex.

Shine

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I was afraid of needles and ponds of water and I was transfixed by both.