Most read stories

14-B

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It was a forgettable face, to be sure. Neither ugly nor beautiful, she looked like any one of a million American women. She could have been headed anywhere, but at that moment, she wanted to go to 14-B.

Velcro Shoes, a Cardboard Computer, and Other Signs of Brilliance

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It wasn't until later that I realized that any time a teacher complimented you on your use of imagination, it was because they didn't know what else to make of whatever you'd created. My homemade narrative video in lieu of the assigned “getting to know y

The Way is Dark, the Road Long

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The day I got out of prison the sun was shining.

A Manual for Readers

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The story will starve. It will crawl up your throat to get the cracker.

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,…

What He Knows What She Knows What You Know

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next time i come around i want to be a redwood.

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.

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

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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

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.

Faggot

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In study hall Brandon sat like a little faggot so I said “Hey faggot.”“That's right, faggot. Don't look at me. I don't like faggots looking at me. I don't want their faggot eyes on me, faggot.”Bell rang and he walked like a faggot and held his books…

The Thrill of Sky Diving

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It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…

The Five Stages of Editing

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The recent release of my debut novel alt.punk was extraordinarily exciting; however, maturing the novel from first draft to publication was not without editing pains. Similar to the Kübler-Ross theory, I progressed through what I refer to as the “five sta

Arcana Magi Cross - c.2

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Ai noticed the red bead at the base of Tori’s neck embedded within the feather. It had the look of a ruby. She slid her hand over the bead and a tingling sensation climbed up her arm.

I Am In Frequent Contact With You-Know-Who

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"I am in frequent contact with you know who, and am able, most of the time, to surreptitiously send messages all day long every day, whenever I am inspired."

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 …

Unseen (a Five-Pointed Star with Four Streaming Lights Coming Out of Its Back Like Mutable Feathers)

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What you see us doing here is not so much, andall we are not being there isn't either. Our kissing mouths may not always be singing, but we are constantly praying for you, and for more rain or less rain, rivers as the situation warrants. Don't…

Hoops

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Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky. Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.

Of Cameramen and Death Squads in Tbilisi

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we share somewhat the same past he was bureau chief of ABC overseas

Why Dogs are Men and Cats are Women

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Dogs will hump anything. Cats do not hump.

Why Aren’t There Fireflies

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

Urban Renewal

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Bike shops, vintage shops, after hour bar shops

Oklahoma, 1944: Howard Hughes Spends the Night in Jail

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There's a drain in the floor.

RUBYRED AND PARSHOOTER

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This stage of Junior’s young life was static, moving very little off-center since his graduation from high school five years ago. Treading water both professionally and emotionally never worried him. Not until after what transpired that night when Pr

Unintended Consequences

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...you pile into your Mercury and barrel down the street, the air smells like sea, the night goes forever...

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…

Peshawar kids

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a dark day

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…

The Mouse and the Cat: A Beast Fable

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Pussy’s eyes narrowed, her dark, luxurious fur quivering on her back. “How can you say such a thing! It’s not true.”

Don't Touch

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

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.