Most read stories

The Artist's Conk

20252025 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 Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 4

20242024 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.

Corporal Punishment

20242024 views1414 comments1313 favs

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

Round the World Now

20242024 views22 comments22 favs

It's true that he had always been more pure than her, looking for the authentic experience, authentic food. And more adventurous. Blogging their way around the world, yes, that had been his idea . . .

Rosaleen In Mourning

20242024 views1818 comments1111 favs

She hardly twitches. Her face regards the stars. If her body is an object, it is the isthmus before global warming. They want to find the source of the glacier in her eyes that is always melting. Maybe they like a woman who cries.

The Serious Writer and His Penis

20242024 views4747 comments2222 favs

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

John McEnroe Visits the 15th Street Diner

20232023 views22 comments22 favs

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

A Night Ride With the Girl Scout Legbreakers

20222022 views66 comments22 favs

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.

Like Trial and (Also) like Error

20222022 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…

Hey Jude

20212021 views99 comments33 favs

I laugh too loud cause the world looks good that way and for a minute we both make funny sounds just to exercise our vocal cords and see how close we can come to the line without crossing.

Pieces

20212021 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.

Ghost

20212021 views88 comments22 favs

It would wander the hallways after the 3:45 bell, after the last class, after the students had all disappeared with the homework they'd never finish, the papers they'd forget to write, after Nate the janitor pushed his broom through the endless doorways,

Passing Past

20212021 views1414 comments1414 favs

No one means to go that way, on an errand to the mall....

How to travel with your Demons (3)

20212021 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.

Finger Weaving A Voyageur Sash

20212021 views1616 comments1212 favs

Night's air awhirl, the sky shoots fireflies. Sometimes, she bleeds black arrows in her dreams.

Zombie

20202020 views1010 comments55 favs

If it were known that I am as stupid as I am, if the press were to open that page on TV, if the laughter shot itself like fireworks out into the road--

A Letter to Saint Francis de Sales – Patron Saint for Writers

20202020 views11 comment00 favs

I've been struck with a bout of writer's block, struggling to get pen to page or finger to keyboard....So I make paper airplanes.

Flash Fiction With Instructions

20202020 views77 comments66 favs

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

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

20202020 views2323 comments1212 favs

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

'Introduction' to LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT

20202020 views00 comments00 favs

Was Sligo an unfeeling privacy-violator or an uncannily-feeling empath, privy to the deepest longings of those whose lives he came in contact with? [...] Sligo's grave is as silent as these pages ultimately would be if they were left unread.

Monsieur Editor and Madame Malaprop

20202020 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.

thing

20202020 views55 comments33 favs

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Before and After

20202020 views3535 comments1616 favs

My heart beat someone up the stairwell.

Dinner with Sam Rockwell

20192019 views3131 comments1313 favs

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

Invasion

20192019 views1111 comments33 favs

That summer crawled with them, insects of every denomination: cicadas caught by the cat, wingless, came to rest in the roots of the garden we planted; sudden swarms of dragonflies...

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.

RUBYRED AND PARSHOOTER

20172017 views22 comments11 fav

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

Senior Center

20172017 views1414 comments66 favs

"Are you all right?" I ask. He blinks. He sits up. I help him stand. He looks sorrowfully at his coffee cup, which is on the floor.

Tonight

20172017 views1010 comments44 favs

Let's fuck like 20-year-olds, darlingwrap ourselves around each otherand fuck our way to the starsLet's cross that line between you and meand the stuff people pay to seeI know pleasure and it is thisall over me, you, covering,…

Your Pajamas

20172017 views88 comments55 favs

Your pajamas torture us. When moist they uncomfortably cling. They have evil buttons, and they cause us to stumble on them in the dark.