Most read stories

Saving Grace

20192019 views00 comments00 favs

It essentially comes down to this: If you have nothing left but paper, all you can really use it for is wiping your behind if you’re in a jam.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 4

20182018 views44 comments00 favs

That night we slept on the floor of Kirk and Maggie’s apartment and listened to them arguing all night about art and life and love. Ah, me, I sighed, the sad soul of America! I thought of Walt Whitman. I thought of Allen Ginsberg.

The Sad Giraffe Demographic

20182018 views99 comments11 fav

...there’s one thing we’ve found, an untapped demographic.

Boredom & Ennui

20172017 views00 comments00 favs

I had a weird feeling I had just validated his behavior — provided another tile in the mosaic of his ego and self-esteem — by doing nothing more than entering this hall of mirrors, and reflecting.

Corporal Punishment

20172017 views1414 comments1313 favs

When I was a little boy, I had a thing about women’s behinds.

Sugarfoot Pond

20172017 views1313 comments1111 favs

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

"Changes" Isn't Just A David Bowie Song

20172017 views1111 comments88 favs

Erin Hoffmeyer Zulkoski. I was at work today, doodling on a piece of scrap paper. I often find myself writing my name, practicing my signature, for when I become famous. I have always written "Erin Zulkoski." Today, I wrote "Erin Hoffmeyer." This…

William

20172017 views11 comment00 favs

The sun browbeat me relentlessly, like a one-eyed judge with an unforgiving heart.

The Duck, the Clock, and the Condom

20172017 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…

Three Sentences, Adding up to One Spectacular Disease-Ridden Bed of the Broken Hearted

20172017 views1212 comments99 favs

1.Oh yes, I'm just kicking around in the leftover moon dust you could say I'm certainly not waiting around for your satellite feed anymore certainly never ever hoping to see if your free falling hair strands still look…

Out of That Bed 1963

20162016 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.

Science Homework

20162016 views22 comments22 favs

The difficulty of disabled parenting was predictable, but nothing could prepare me for having to say goodbye to my wife again on problem #7.

Gerade rechts zum Volkszimmer

20162016 views2626 comments1616 favs

So, we are all healthy but suffering financially, not equally so, and the tendency to suffer financially has been caused by humbling ourselves to particular men. We take a quiz in moral values, phrased as a party game.

We Don't Need No Education

20152015 views2727 comments1919 favs

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

Born Too Soon: America's Hottest Teachers

20152015 views00 comments11 fav

The teachers who get caught propositioning male students are always wholesome family women. This is why I have repeatedly called for regular round-ups of wholesome family women before another young man’s morals are corrupted.

Monsieur Editor and Madame Malaprop

20152015 views1010 comments33 favs

They slept in the same bed but that was all they had in common. He, an editor, had shelves filled with literary works and she, his wife of many years and never much of a reader, had strewn their penthouse apartment with Madeline children’s books.

The Paprika Ewer

20152015 views55 comments44 favs

Valeria never whistled. Nor did she approve of people who did. One thing she had learned in her sixty-seven years was that people who whistled were crass. Butchers whistled. So did peasants.

The Serious Writer and His Penis

20152015 views4747 comments2222 favs

Only strong personalities can endure such size, the weak ones are extinguished by it.

The Artist's Conk

20152015 views88 comments77 favs

Whenever talk dies, or darkness gathers too closely around the breakfast table, everyone knows the list of ritual activities we can brightly suggest to skip the day forward.

The Sally-Anne Test

20142014 views33 comments55 favs

Sally-Anne is in a graveyard. A girl about her age and height died two years before. Sally-Anne is digging up the bones. Her parents Aaron and Rebecca think she is at her piano…

Stevie Wonder

20142014 views33 comments22 favs

Like Prince said one time, parties aren't meant to last. Guys who don't get the message are guys who die by the inch.

You, the Correct Other, the One I am Looking For

20142014 views2323 comments1212 favs

You, the correct Other, the one I am looking for, you have exacting standards concerning where things must go.

What He Knows What She Knows What You Know

20142014 views88 comments77 favs

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

Bert & Ernie: The Pre Nup

20142014 views77 comments66 favs

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…

thing

20142014 views55 comments33 favs

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Dinner with Sam Rockwell

20132013 views3131 comments1313 favs

“I liked you best in Choke–you were sexy in a lazy, sort of ‘70s way.”

Withdrawal

20132013 views1414 comments1313 favs

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Like Trial and (Also) like Error

20132013 views1717 comments1010 favs

We sat all in a muffledlittle line up, on theconcrete lips of tomorrow'ssleepy chin, like all the world's good little children should, as the paradelimped itself slowly by, slapping itself against the young day'sexcitement like a damaged flattire, trying its…

Boys of Summer in Yonkers (Memoir Excerpt # 2)

20132013 views66 comments11 fav

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

Flash Fiction With Instructions

20122012 views77 comments66 favs

The protagonist’s story goes like this: 1.) You are young. You’ll get over it.