Most read stories

ALL THE BASTARDS AND ME

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The apartment was a second-level place, so I went down the steps and looked through the stained glass window of the door. “Ah hell,” I said to myself. Raymond Carver and John Fante and Charles Bukowski were outside. I opened the door.

Why I Don't Write Sex Scenes Anymore

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I’ve had my face talked off by those types (and I’m sure you’ve met a few) who need to say and hear “special” words, and they go "unh-hunh, unh-hunh, o yeah, o yeah, unh hunh."

Abu Arif & His Daughters

22012201 views00 comments11 fav

I cannot remember what the celebration was for, but the baby was at its center. We passed him around, a sweet smiling boy about seven months old. The age when babies can sit but can't yet crawl and their thighs get plump.

Wind Drinks Time Like Wine

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but let's stop and take another look at things could it be through our closed eyes that we didn't really know what we were talking about that there never was a surprise

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.2 - c.3

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With Sora looking, they realized they caught her attention, but Ciel just turned away. Azure wanted to talk to her and let a few things off her chest. She figured they both could settle this through talking and move forward from there

The Kisses of a Satyr

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“I better go. My mom needs me at home,” she says. Soft. Smooth. Firm. Sweet. Maybe I’m pushing too hard. I kiss her on the cheek and she stiffens in response. My heart bleats.

Liebe Grüße

22012201 views22 comments00 favs

Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.

Hail Mary Pass

22012201 views99 comments55 favs

so for penance, the priest gave me the full twelve Stations of the Cross

Red Left Hand

22012201 views55 comments33 favs

"I see a child's bicycle swarmed by bees. A stolen oil painting of a helicopter...no, no, that ain't it. Wait. A high school basketball coach will hang himself from a bridge you often think about. This man, now, he's a Navajo Indian.

Warning: Literary Fiction: The One-Dollar Minister

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It was Warren who introduced me to this bouncer fellow named John O’Toole. Warren met O’Toole and his wife, Angelina, through the dark prison poet Eugene Forcer. Forcer and O’Toole were the best of friends until a riff erupted between them one drunken n

That Crazy-Ass Willy Wonka Boat

21992199 views33 comments00 favs

I was crouched under a bruise-purple sky on a field of battle. I held a World War I-era weapon, an ancient black-iron spear with a spring, and I was told to load balloons onto it without popping them, and then I was to fire the balloons at some unnamed ta

excerpt from a forthcoming novel

21992199 views44 comments33 favs

I wriggled in the bed and felt the sheets soaked with perspiration. My arms were lined with tape and tubing, needles pressed in veins. I reached for the cloth again and again, and every time they stopped me. The hands that came were cold and hard, urgent

This isn’t Silverlake anymore

21992199 views1010 comments99 favs

I hear the slightly scratched voice of Joan Baez coming from the record player singing about the junipers in the pale moonlight, applause erupting like hailstone on a corrugated iron roof. I am singing back through the bedroom wall, wishing the

Rude Awakening

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Vito suddenly found himself wide awake. He was unable to recall having fallen asleep or dreaming or awakening. It seemed he'd just entered bed, yet a glance at the windows told him it was already the middle of the night.

Hollow

21982198 views88 comments77 favs

His mouth is a flesh cave where a grizzly slumbers and winter is the blank page of my face.

In My Father’s House There Are Many Murders

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My father said that he had been ready for that journey for many days past and that he had asked often for the spirits to come and take him. He prayed to the god of the heavens and to the earth mother. He prayed for the three of us, and he prayed for the s

2002 or 3

21982198 views1414 comments1111 favs

She was petite, pear-shaped, white, the girlfriend of a friend who'd done his degree in Russian Literature, but that's not the only reason I liked him. The husband I had for a while traveled whether he needed to or not and so I'd go with Julie and Phillip to movies,…

Balconies

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In a few brief moments the entire sky became full of this wetness and greyed to the point of almost blackening, and it was a Sunday morning, and the man thought that thoughts were strange things, because he had a piercing epiphany that there was no God..

The Spaceman and the Venusian Vampire Vixens

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It’s late July, and I’ve just been given the assignment to cover Paganfoil’s ‘Warbird’ tour. To tell you the truth, I really loathe this assignment. I never, ever, EVER cared for hard rock or heavy metal or whatever they’re calling it this dec

Winter Blues

21972197 views99 comments66 favs

He told me he could feel an army of tears building up behind his eyes.

Purveyors of Leeches

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I am a purveyor of leeches. All my friends are purveyors of leeches. We meet weekly to compare our wares.

Pentagon City

21972197 views1313 comments88 favs

I had been in bed for a couple of days and by this I mean sleeping for fifteen or sixteen hours at a time. I don’t think that I believed in God anymore. I no longer knew how to stay awake.

Turtles Don't Have Hair

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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

The World's Loneliest Girl

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Turns out it was you. But. You made it into the latest dumping ground in spite of their voted insults. In spite of being told you weren't even going to be around to be danced with. The loneliest girl now looks perfectly trim and trendy to all eyes.…

Martyr

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The everlasting shone through when skirting the tenuous threshold of the two worlds.

over me

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What you may see initially could be only half the poem. The rest is hidden.

A Good Wife

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"How did you know he was a nobody if you didn't look at him, eh? Did you raise your eyes and look him in the face? Are you my wife or a whore?"

Saw Her

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Just like that. He heard her words clearly from the top floor of the five story apartment building. The unexpected change in weather made it mandatory for him to open his window.

AFTER

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You haven't lived until she dances just for you ..

Stretch Marks

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Stretch marks part my heart, stretch marks part my body.