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Buster Keaton

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I passed Buster Keaton on the way to work this morning. He was standing, hands in pockets, at the corner of Riverview and Keil. It was the young Buster, handsome and still strong enough to pin down the scars that marked his childhood. This was the Buster

Kung Pao Turkey

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It was my grandmother's idea of a joke, but I never realized she was joking when she repeated it every Thanksgiving. She would sit at the head table just before Uncle Leon would carve the bird and ask, "It's an American holiday. Shouldn't we be roasting an eagle…

Lips that Touch Liquor: The French 75

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The French 751 1/2 ounces of cognac1 ounce of lemon juice1 teaspoon of sugar6 ounces of champagne For the rest of that night, everything Mickey looked at appeared to have a halo of music, something nearly visible that he could almost …

kroy hearts destiny

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r luv iz gud enuf 4 a tat2

There's Love, and there's Marriage

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He didn’t used to smell that way, like a rained-on boot, like the insides of a lived-on couch. ... He used to smell like he wore light, subcutaneous cologne.

Better than Chocolate

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Teddy laughs like a machine gun. People back away when they hear him. Every time I see him at work, I try to make his skinny body rattle. I would never back away.

Armless Wonder

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For the woman with no arms, life is a constant dexterity demonstration

Eight States Away

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He boarded the wrong plane. (Hey, it could happen. Maybe not after 9/11, but certainly before)

The Light From A Sports Bar A Thousand Miles Away

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"Michael has had no drink, no cigarette, no illicit drug and very little illicit sex since September 14, 1989."

The Duck, the Clock, and the Condom

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Every night famous authors read not only to us, but to a duck. A wild female who emerged from the lake just as we were gathering, settled her gray-brown feathers down not three feet from the podium, tucked her head inside her wing, and remained there. If the duck liked…

Caffeine-Fueled Revelation Machines

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So she leans over the patio table like that model in that magazine ad and then takes a sip of her blended coffee drink as if a director had said to pretend the straw is a penis. As if this director only just shouted, “And you're a dirty, dirty girl, and

Throwing Pencils

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I can never tell if he’s drunk or using some sort of substance or if perhaps his brain just doesn’t fire at the pace that we have come to accept as normal.

Snake Eyes

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Traveling with a live chicken on a city bus is an experience I hope never to repeat.

Granny's Reform School Weekend Intensive Workshop, Session One

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Being a grandparent is most joyous when deliberately subversive.

Fly the Friendly Skies

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Lucky bastard, he gets Glamour Puss and I get lady wrestler who's giving off the vibe she'll bludgeon me to death with her Bible if I make one false move.

Dancers: Summer '69

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The locals cut stone in quarries, built elevators at the Cummins plant in Columbus, or brewed shine back in the hills between Bean Blossom and Gnaw Bone.

The Deepest Cut

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Smoke is pouring outta my ears! (And outta my mouth and nostrils, but that's normal.) The Fast-o-matic Supermart has changed their coupons. Now you can't swap them for plastic surgery. So all those tubes of New Orleans-style Cottil-i-Lard dog sausage…

Tyler is learning about girls.

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Tyler has a Mars bar in his jeans pocket. It’s warm and soft. He tries to insert it.

2 Little Paragraphs About Writing

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I write in the morning when the world is bendy.

too pissy for poetry

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feeling obligated to write/ is like feeling/ obligated to fuck.

Refill Please

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“Hello, this is Natalie Silverman, I’ve been tying to get my prescription filled for over a week. ... Maybe you recall, you did my brain surgery last spring? I’m sorry that there’s still a balance of over eight thousand dollars. I hope you don’t hold tha

Ode to a Crow

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We walk in silence. We water our plants. We don’t eat as well as we should. We try to love. We try to forget.

They're cutting the catalpa tree (Catalpa speciosa) in Essen, Germany

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They cut the tall specious tree storms snapped the night in two or three. At times they pause most piously to count each ring of truth, drive nails into the stiff cathartic spine, divine if this unseasoned cigar topiary agrees with its own everlasting te

The Lovers

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I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY TO YOU, she lisps, and, with this, the fissure in the man’s head reaches the bottom of his chin and the hollow head splits in two.

Birthday Boy

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"I called him a fucking loser and left."

Through the Looking Glass: Humpty Dumpty 2011

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“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

The Mating Call Of The North American Female Sounds Like The Deep Bellow Of A Birthing Moose

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"...if Rosie O'Donnell were to attach a horn to her forehead, she'd move up the ranks as the deadliest creature in the world."

In the hot seat

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I sighed and looked deep into his eyes. “There is nothing more powerful than denial.”

I Must Slip The Batman a Fin

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The Batman says it's his birthday. I take him at his word.

Never Been Down to Lonely Street

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“This is not turning out to be a wholesome project,” my brother hissed into the phone one night. “Yo, Alan, it’s ELVIS. It’s American gothic, and the child needs to know the underbelly of the myth,” I hissed back.“Did you, or did you not, wear makeup to