Most read stories

December 15, 2012

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Already, I can see that, whenever Harold moves, some of his soul escapes, like an accidental exhalation, like breath on powder.

The Prettiest Lie

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Your life is going to change—how many times was that prediction offered in one form or another during my wife’s pregnancy? Mothers often said it with a bliss-touched smile; fathers with a smirk that was both sardonic and conspiratorial, and a distinct

Sociopathic Medicine

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True love may last forever, but the most I've ever gotten out of a lab assistant is two years, five months, three weeks, twelve days, and fifteen hours. And he was the exception.

The Zilch Belches Out Its Own National Anthem To the Trendy Crowds

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" Not a day goes by/ that isn't stabbed with common sorrow"--Maurice Manning Crazy's alright by me if it's a harmless plea for some little sanity, or unavoidable by birth but it just won't do for tricks. Like say I go over there right…

Banana Creme Pies for Sixty Percents

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Suddenly the auditory havoc dies down and she falls into a loop, saying BANANA CREME PIES FOR SIXTY PERCENTS over and over.

Something Strange There Is

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Maybe God couldn’t find His bifocals, and that’s why my check for ten million hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe a stray dog in heaven ate my check. Maybe God went bankrupt like everyone else. Okay, so maybe at the end of life I’ll balance my checkbook. I do

Yes You Can--Buy My Book of Bad Poetry

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America has given birth to many great poets--Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Muhammad Ali--but why should talented people have all the fun?

Etymology

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In every word there is both music and history. Music from the way sounds come into union with each other, and history in how they get there. There is form too, sure, but I am not a calligrapher. I'm a scribbler if anything. And so my sentences look mo

Acceptance is to her a phenomenon

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You were given blame for action as experience by cause and effect now. If you take apart blame and even forgiveness is too rigid. She thinks of that purpose as to give men sexual destiny.

How to travel with your Demons (4)

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I also understand if you don't think that's fair. But consider this: If she doesn't operate according to those rules, then where are we? Isn't that anarchy?

An Object for the Sun God

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this one was abandoned... a splinter left under the skin, pushed out by protective flesh

Arcana Magi Cross - c.3

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Ai thought she was flying at first, but she felt herself leaning on something. Before she could figure out what was happening, her eyes closed again, and had a short dream.

FOR SCIENCE!

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According to the weatherman's morning forecast it was supposed to be a dark and stormy night. Unfortunately for Doctor Von Übel the weather had other things in mind...

This Girl in That Shirt

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At first when she walked in, I thought she looked like a wet dog. Then after a minute, I’m trying to wrap my mind around how perfect she is.

Mostly I Want to be Walking

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by myself next to just one wide-eyed moment of wild blued out ocean. You know the one I mean. I don't want to have to speak to you, or even- alone- to myself. I'd like to be left inside the poem it makes me feel without having to get up and pee every…

Mona

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Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.

Joe for Town Council

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“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.

A smile is worth 1000 teeth

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I was desperate for a social life but I couldn’t go out because I was too embarrassed to smile.

The Maze

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The man with the truncheon emerged at the monorail car's forward connecting doorway. One moment the space was vacant, a faux metal canvas for the dazzling sunlight streaming through a grime-encrusted window. When next Theseus Harrow looked up from his seat the dark-suited…

Smoke

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On his last day of high school Jackie York woke up to the smell of burning books. He didn't know it was his last day of high school. He did know the smoke coming through his rusty window screen was book smoke.

The Captive

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....sees the beginning of a new day through the closed shutters, hears the guard washing up at the sink, feels the beginning of a cry in his throat.

April

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A riot of greens

Suzanne

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And I watched, from her warm bed, the curtains dancing in the window

Where Time is Water

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Dog time is water. Incidents bob near the surface, fall into whirlpools, sink or drift with the flow.

Who you are

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a mid-life crisis in 55 words

The Undertaker's Son

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You would never see me the same again. You'd always be peaking at me from behind your mother's apron.

Becoming an Oates Girl

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She walked, thighs flaming fire-cold, without complaining or grumbling or cursing the goddamn Midwestern winters the way the others did.

Trader Joe's, on a Sunday

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When you think I'm not looking, I always am. You say it's like nicotine, your best analogy as a non-smoker. The kind of hit that is hard to live without and isn't it human nature, you ponder.

Cat People #9: Tales of Manhattan

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She'd make a great catch in the rain. Because in the rain nothing moves. No cat girl of deep shade eyeliner. No saint of dark corners.

Remarkable Depths of Semantic Ambiguity

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Thank you for submitting your epic poem I, I, I for consideration. While we are encouraged that you have relented from the ruthless self-endictment you affected so unconvincingly in your previous entry, Why Am I...