Most read stories

Don't Touch

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

1918, 1944, 1991, and now

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Disability is indivisibility—all of us could be its members—unlike its affirmative action forebears who remain underrepresented, even as the groups’ selected contestants prepare to retire early, a distributed group whose specialty is American anthropology

Forgetfulness

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

Sundays

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Momma’s hands smell of vanilla.

Peshawar kids

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a dark day

Confess another sin

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Four Days before Thanksgiving, Boston to Colorado

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The daughter's trip, a travail, cross country; the painkillers were not the finisher mom needed—and the white sheets of the institution were too thin to provide her any comfort as she dreamt of swimming; a backstroke suspended over a waterless pool.Her father…

Flesh and Blood

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On Monday I cook coq au vin. Fatty yellow skin detached and floating in the sauce.

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.2

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Azure shook her head and stood to her feet. Staring at her wrists, she knew that she would have to endure this until they found help.

A Night Ride With the Girl Scout Legbreakers

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It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m lying in bed, wide awake, drenched in sweat. I know what I need–a Thin Mint cookie–but I don’t know where I’m gonna find one.

John McEnroe Visits the 15th Street Diner

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

A life in books

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Forget Ulysses, life itself is a stream of consciousness if you ever have time to get out of the stream and take a look at it. And there’s nothing that gets you out of the stream like a short sharp shock.

Plato's Cave

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Mick Jagger and I strolled rue Gabrielle in Montmartre. Our conversation spread from apples to shellfish. We stopped for some oysters. Do you remember a time when books were venerated, I asked? I remember a time, he said, when rock and roll was a fetus in the tank of…

Not Lao-tzu's Yellow Brick Road, i - xvi

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the Way that can be mapped leads nowhere.

Relationship S&M

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"Absolutely. I get better at it all the time." he confidently replies. He reminds me that it was all her idea. They were online friends when she suggested it. "She loves it." he tells me again, but I think of her sad eyes as she walked upstairs to tend to

My Boogie Man

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We'd both done well to avoid crying before today and I couldn't stand to see him like this. I crawled on my hands and knees to the closet. “David, come out of there. I…I don't like this any more than you do. But you can't come to college with me.

Zoomba Juice

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The Zoomba quivered in anticipation as the front door shut.

Bert & Ernie: The Pre Nup

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BERT AND ERNIE -- THE PRE NUPBy Roz Warren and Janet GoldenInspired by a recent Supreme Court decision, Bert and Ernie are finally going to tie the knot! Their just signed pre-nup was leaked to us by a Muppet whose identity we've promised not to reveal, in…

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.

Arcana Magi - c.22: Moving Forward

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Alysia never said a word as she rested her body on Suzaku’s feathers. She felt the wings cover her like a blanket. It brought memories of her mother doing the same as they watched a movie together on the couch.

The Cool Report

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I didn't go to China, however. I would have gone there in debt wearing their clothing. I was afraid to owe even $4,000 (what I still owe) living overseas.

Why Aren’t There Fireflies

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There are hundreds of fireflies crackling along the tree line and the old stonewall.

Eager To Please

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She didn't care for the taste. Slightly salty and sweet at the same time, but she let him come in her mouth just the same

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 …

Tracks

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The winter following their son's death, Mr. Kelly's wife became absorbed by the tracks that ran in back of their house. At any given hour in the night, he'd hear her in the next room, their son's old room where she now slept, shuffling through dresser drawers. He…

A June Defection

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I came from the only flat region in the kingdom of mountains and fjords, and called the city “Down in the Dumps”. The beleaguering mountains smelled a flatlander when they saw one, and hated me right back.

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?”…

And Her Eyes Said Something I Did Not Understand

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A herd of garbage trucks groaned down dark streets filling their black hydraulic hearts with rotten trashcans and glass, and a smile ate her whole face. I showed her a text from a friend: "T-minus 10 seconds till meltdown."She laughed and I wrote back.A small,…

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.

Process and Procedure

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“I changed religions for that baby.”