Most read stories

Let me tell you about the smell of the rain.

21842184 views99 comments55 favs

You are lonely. Let me tell you about the smell of the rain.

Necessary Heat

21832183 views55 comments22 favs

What is writing, Rick B.? You appear in your photo to be more handsome than your first brother. Sudden memory appears: "Question mark? Curvy: cock. Exclamation! Stiff: prick."

Sees, Kindness, and Made

21832183 views1212 comments1010 favs

SeesWe fell into this lake together and traced the clean soft lines straight back to ourselves, with a carefree laugh, ha ha ha-- an embarrassing ease. This small miracle does tend to put in orbit something high flying besides clouds into the sky inside of…

The Duck, the Clock, and the Condom

21832183 views99 comments77 favs

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…

Sugarfoot Pond

21822182 views1313 comments1111 favs

i was jus countin' your heartbeats, Emmie and you know what? i think they's the same as mine!

Pieces

21822182 views66 comments44 favs

I find my mother’s pink Pyrex mixing bowl at the antique store on Fairview Avenue. It’s in the hands of a fat woman in a blue down parka, and she’s holding it upside down, squinting at the sticker on the bottom.

Out of That Bed 1963

21822182 views22 comments33 favs

My father's hands were huge. His left knuckles gashed as a kid when he rode his bike too close to a moving train. When his fingers fisted around a glass, the scarred joints bulged from his grip like blind eyes.

Parking Garage

21822182 views1717 comments1818 favs

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

Novel Excerpt - Full Chapter of Jimmy!

21822182 views22 comments11 fav

Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound ...

Tainted Love

21822182 views1515 comments1010 favs

...skinny love, skinned and thinned weak broth love...

Snapshots

21812181 views1919 comments1717 favs

Jake remembers that Amy told him once that she thought that somehow he would always be a part of her life. That was before she went to Spain and married an American bull fighter.

How to travel with your Demons (3)

21812181 views66 comments66 favs

Watch her now as she tries to not smoke. Considers, reconsiders. Checks her nylon bag for her phone charger, and lights a cigarette anyway, which she immediately extinguishes in the kitchen sink.

A mostly true story about the Coca-Cola Museum

21812181 views22 comments11 fav

At work I recommended someone go to the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta. I told you about recommending it to someone. “I always wanted to go back there,” I said. “You did? You never told me,” you said.

Thirteen Ways of Nevermore: Arkansas, 12/31/2010

21812181 views99 comments66 favs

MIDNIGHT all day. Bleak December. A chiaroscuro, snowing blackbirds. (Pas de cinq mille, in B minor.)

We Don't Need No Education

21802180 views2727 comments1919 favs

“There’s an ill energy that emanates from your precise heart that I find attractive”

Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate

21802180 views55 comments22 favs

It’s true that there are many accounts of fascinating Amish dinnerware, but none is more interesting than Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate, forged in 1881.

The Inkblot Test

21802180 views00 comments00 favs

“Regard this inkblot,” the Psych says to Worker 168. “What do you see?” Worker 168, a thin young women wearing overalls, peers at the inkblot. “I see a beautiful summer day,” she says. “A young woman, wearing a flowing dress, sits…

Veld fire

21802180 views33 comments11 fav

The crackling inferno sweeps across the ground Devouring all in its scorching path

Whatever Happened to Sue Ellen?

21802180 views55 comments22 favs

When she awoke in her yard, she poured what was left of the rum into the dead grass. The man beside her lay with fingers curled, a claw she’d found wedged up her skirt when she woke. Tom, she said, his name nonsense, tongues. Might as well have been any

Oklahoma, 1944: Howard Hughes Spends the Night in Jail

21802180 views88 comments55 favs

There's a drain in the floor.

Eating Grief at Bickford’s

21792179 views77 comments66 favs

Eating Grief at Bickford's · From Allen Ginsberg's “Kaddish” There are no places anymore Where I can sit at a threadbare table Pick at the crumbs on my plate And wipe The white dust From my pitch …

The Most Beautiful Truth

21782178 views1313 comments88 favs

I still believe in the very slim chanceI might say something luckyenough to reach your truest insides, your at homespirit, that you will hearand understand ascare on my part, evenif you can never quiteidentify me asits secret sender, that warm…

Arcana Magi Behind the Scenes: Character Sheets

21782178 views00 comments00 favs

A behind the scenes look at the character designs of the Arcana Magi Universe.

John McEnroe Visits the 15th Street Diner

21782178 views22 comments22 favs

“What’s a hushpuppy?” 264 asked 118, who knew three words of English. 118 said, “No.”

Golden State

21772177 views33 comments22 favs

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.

Empty Space

21762176 views33 comments22 favs

The house was empty now - silent. Each room was filled with air too thin to sustain memory. She stood, absorbing the emptiness, addding it to her own. Her footsteps were hesitant, reluctant to disturb the silence. She walked into her old bedroom - so…

Noche de las Ranas

21762176 views33 comments33 favs

He pushed aside the netting and trained the flashlight on the dripping courtyard. Rivers ran off the wide pinanona leaves, surged through fissures in the crumbling wall.

Forgetfulness

21762176 views00 comments00 favs

But the urge now is to unknow the urgency with which I forgot my self-description.

Swicks Rule!

21762176 views1818 comments99 favs

She waves her hand around, says, “Pah!” and starts digging invisible things out of the potato salad with her bare hands.

A Jeep Wrangler, a moped, a bank bag, Woody Guthrie and stained teeth

21762176 views22 comments00 favs

A bank bag now hung from those teeth—yellow-gray rancid, decaying teeth, strands of tobacco chew laced in between. Those thin pen mark lips could not hide the teeth’s keyhole spaces, shaped by open cavities—the bank bag hung from those teeth. The me