Most read stories

Lisa

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She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything. So I helped her to the car and we didn’t talk along the way.

Sundays

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Momma’s hands smell of vanilla.

Ecce viator : Behold the Traveler

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The snake glides unhurriedly through the garden one warm July afternoon looking for a schmoose. Or barring such pleasant daytime passage, a shady snoozing spot. He twines himself about the gravid apple tree’s trunk caduceus-like, slithering his handsom

Tweeting "War and Peace" by Bobbie Ann Mason and Meg Pokrass

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by Bobbie Ann Mason and Meg Pokrass at The Nervous Breakdown website: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/mpokrass/2012/10/tweeting-war-and-peace-with-bobbie-ann-mason/

Boys of Summer in Yonkers (Memoir Excerpt # 2)

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I am coming to understand how many memories of my father involve him, driving

Turning Thirty

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It was a year of red, white, and blue bell bottoms, chokers, and mini-skirts. It was not a decade of pink stretch pants, pink sweatshirts, and pink snowsuits.

Why I am Afraid of Spiders

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SPIDERS

Empty Space

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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…

Peshawar kids

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a dark day

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.

Something About Ireland (from FATHER MUST)

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That’s the way it went all day with me—didn’t get far, didn’t see much, just, with Mary, drank tea here and there. A fine day it was, too; not cloudy, not raining...

The Inkblot Test

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“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…

Parking Garage

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

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.

Two Poems:With the Whole Crowd/Apparently So

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With the whole bizarre crowd surrounding us like birds on shit covered cliffs, offering up a bowl full of choppy seas to the many bored and stuffed sky gods, we danced our way into all their hard shell covered hearts as one thing. Still they never knew our hiding …

The Tracing Game

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Shadows skipped across the bedroom wall at 80 km/hour. It wouldn't be so bad if people wouldn't use their high beams but it's the price you pay for living on a dark highway with low property taxes. “How do you sleep in here?”…

Don't Touch

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Frank must have said "don't touch" about a million times over the course of the day

Forgetfulness

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

Confess another sin

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I Happen To Think I Have A Great Face, Actually

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For those of you with a position cemented firmly to the contrary, I happen to think I have a great face, actually. My face, maybe I talk about my body a lot, but my face is pretty great, really it is.

11:11AM Eastern Standard Time:

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"Make a wish," she whispered.

Go Yonder and Worship, part 1

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In the blue of the yard the twins boil and scrape, twisting about beneath the sycamore tree.

Undone

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Last summer our marriage took a direct hit and crashed into a deep pit with little warning when Millicent met a Facebook man and simply left, taking up with him, presenting him with my space in her life to receive her touch and this thought perpetually gnaws away, making me…

Post-Mortem

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She threw the wine glass on the floor.

A Simple Misunderstanding

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With such an attitude, it is remarkable that Jerome Quinth would be the one to make first contact with the beings from Lepton Six. As near as authorities could piece together from the charred remains, the historic event happened innocently enough on on

Close to Ireland (for the Paddy Group Challenge)

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The closest I've been to Ireland is Conwy castle on the coast of Wales. It was summer, mid-way through college. I was naive and dreamy then. I wandered historic and literary monuments throughout England and weighed my future options.

Berto and Cosi

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Berto had come to live with me a month earlier. He’d been cursed by being the favored child of our parents. Their indulgence resulted in a 40 year old man and heroin addict from age 17 and all that accompanies such an existence such as thievery, larcen

Bumper Repair: $129.95

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They ask about WWII and he claims no kills...

Out of That Bed 1963

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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.

As Luck Would Have It

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For fifteen years Wendy waited for Harry to leave his wife. From time to time, there’d been ultimatums, break-ups too, but they never stuck. Now Wendy’s luck was about to change. It was Tuesday, Wendy and Harry’s standing night to be together. His wif