Most read stories

HOUSE OF GHOSTS

20232023 views1212 comments88 favs

The blue Victorian at 1145 White Street shifts in its foundation, creaks, and settles in for the night. The girls are bundled into their beds. My wife, too, has gone to sleep. I’m alone in the kitchen, steeping chamomile tea, coughing phlegm into the wr

Estranged

20232023 views1010 comments66 favs

He kind of enjoyed living by himself. It was nice and peaceful.

Death Hitches a Ride

20232023 views22 comments22 favs

We passed a dead cat lying up against a guard rail, its fur stringing and wet and exposing its bloated skin which had a purple tint to it. Not my work, Death said, smoke trickling out of one eye socket.

Wings

20232023 views88 comments88 favs

The trouble began in October, when Ava, an embittered receptionist who worked at a small museum housed in a five-story Westside brownstone, discovered that the floors were littered with enormous grey feathers

Cast Off Thy Suffering

20232023 views1616 comments44 favs

Somewhere along tomorrow, I will forget I have the right to do this.

The Undertaker's Son

20232023 views00 comments00 favs

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

Memory Box

20222022 views00 comments00 favs

Soft voices in private, in the street, city noise violence disappears she blinks her eyelids and I can hear the lashes intertwine and pull clear.

Death At McDonalds, or How I Learned To Love

20222022 views1010 comments44 favs

"I sighed heavily. 'Goddamn it...' I spat under my breath. 'Every motherfucking time..."

Arborist Abridged

20222022 views55 comments00 favs

Besides, that might have been the area of his birth, and if so, Jacob was now the director, priest, pallbearer, driver, and custodian of a hometown funeral

You Were This Close

20222022 views1313 comments1414 favs

I don't know if we'll meet again in the sea of light. Circumstances aren't only up to human beings. After all maybe it's all drunk circumstance, but that doesn't answer the blinding question, it only poses some more. This is…

What the Father Said

20212021 views66 comments33 favs

At night, instead of sleep, there were new and secret pleasures. Half-awake lessons in dexterity, in the limber material of human life.

Arturo + Lourdes, 2005 and 4ever

20212021 views44 comments22 favs

Here’s the story as compiled from the scantest of clues: The writing on the back of a stall door in the restroom of a twenty-four hour restaurant under the Gowanus Expressway.

The New Meow

20212021 views44 comments11 fav

I'm delighted to report that I've come up with my own school of thought. It's called, "Dress Like a Cat Until You Get What You Want."

Red

20212021 views66 comments22 favs

Erwin came into the kitchen through the back door and went straight to the sink to clean up. Black mud and dried blood crusted his fingertips and caked the callused whorls of his knuckles.  He used the round of strong-smelling soap he kept for…

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

20212021 views1111 comments44 favs

Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

Years After

20212021 views88 comments66 favs

Years After she can go home.

Little Pi.ec.es

20202020 views1010 comments55 favs

I scare my daughter when she sleeps because she thinks I'm going to kill her.

Non-Stop Service

20202020 views55 comments00 favs

Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.

From Time To Infinity

20202020 views55 comments22 favs

On some evenings, when I would sneak out of my room, I'd sit on the verandah and count the streetlights. I'd count the stars in the sky and trace the moon with the tip of my finger and consider how anyone could make it through the night when there were so

Birthday Buddy

20202020 views22 comments22 favs

His birthday buddy was like a wife to him: they were born a day apart. This was coordinated, he believe, in the womb. Well, to be more accurate, wombs. She was due two weeks earlier but waited; he two weeks later but cut his womb-time (as the kids call i

'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.

... and I liked it!

20202020 views22 comments11 fav

... red lipstick shiny in the bar's light, raven-colored hair spiky and toussled. Jen opened her mouth to say something, stickiness of her cherry Chapstick separating with her lips ... and the girl leaned in and started kissing her.

Hat Shop Girls

20192019 views77 comments33 favs

My favorite was a red bowler, a man's hat, which I never dared wear outside my tiny bedroom. My three brothers wanted it too much to take that kind of a risk. They'd poke me with various sharp objects: the serrated edge of the bread knife, the rusted TV

palisades

20192019 views66 comments66 favs

Driving up to the Palisades after 9/11 for a meteor shower

"Fancy Me"

20192019 views1515 comments33 favs

He stopped the shower and recounted his life, now Kin-less and plain.

Shuffling Deck Chairs on the Titanic

20192019 views00 comments00 favs

He said he'd searched in vain for his wife, Mary, before abandoning hope and the ship in one of the last row boats. He was allowed in because of his experience fishing.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 19

20182018 views77 comments33 favs

His wings were down when he got into the truck. It was a used UPS truck we’d bought from someone in Berkeley, and we painted out the letter “S,” so that it just read “UP.”

a microcosm

20182018 views1212 comments55 favs

The right is empty, waiting to receive the load like a catcher behind home plate.

The Loss of a Child

20182018 views2424 comments77 favs

I watched as the light fled from your eyes, No slowly dimming lamp,

Guardians

20182018 views77 comments66 favs

His toenails were so long they curled under and into the black leathery pads of his feet. They lightly clacked on our linoleum, tap shoes made of thick petrified roots. He didn't seem to mind.