Most read stories

20th Century Anna

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Why can't you mimic your mythical counterpart? Anna Karenina? Have you never considered the tall dark stranger? The boot to the face, the fangs on the neck? Vronsky is Russian Gentry, a veritable prince and he swept that Anna off her feet in two sec

Cast Off Thy Suffering

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

Those (Beckoning) Lights

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The understanding we made was neatly wrapped up in its own blue tissue cocoon like a neatly rolled joint and dumped unceremoniously into the forgotten past like a plate of leftover digitized lies. The lid was slammed shut. Time passes too tightly. And you …

That Crazy-Ass Willy Wonka Boat

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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

Helen O., Grand Central, 1959

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No snippet to see, here. The piece is so short a snippet would be the whole thing.

Found Poem

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The waters rose / on the earth

From Time To Infinity

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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

Cornfield

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This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.

Disorienteering

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At night, on these New England roads, there is no light, no pink sodium-vapor glow, no guideposts.

Sophie's Choice

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Sophie is a cat. I tell you this upfront so as not to get you all wound up about moral angst, Nazi's or a mother's love.

The Grape

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I would be reduced to begging on the streets and hoping for a sign of her in soup lines.

Don't Wash, Don't Tell

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Butch the Labradoodle sets some necessary boundaries.

Personal Trenches

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The headlines were my source of information and contact. Four Soldiers Killed in Baghdad read one. Seven Ambushed in Fallujah. I’d read them, look for his name, and maybe clip it out. It put me there; put me in touch with him.

The Highwayman Teaches Me About Sex and Death

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hooves moon dark latch eyes rope / Bess the landlord's daughter, the landlord's blackeyed daughter / gun breasts dress shame shouts blood blood blood

Moon Over L.A.

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The moon begins to rise over L.A. while the roaches try to crawl up the sides of the mountains surrounding the L.A. Basin. While fires rage in the forests of the night, here comes the moon over the horizon, big and haunted, pock-marked and coo

You Were This Close

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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…

Across the street.

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When the talking's done, they get in their cars to go wherever they go, and just as soon as that last car clears the path, the yellow-cabbed trucks are back and the men get out.

Non-Stop Service

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

We'll Always Have Paris

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“Tonight’s news begins with a Stone’s Throw exclusive. Intimate friends of hotel heiress Paris Hilton have confided that the talent-starved celebrity has agreed to marry Quaker Bob, longtime spokesperson and package icon for Quaker Oats cereal.

Improbable Bodies

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The book has known many women’s hands, something erotic and frequently checked out from our local library. Its cover depicts a man and a woman, both with improbable if not impossible bodies. I believe the term is bodice-ripper.

The Lottery Ticket, First 20 pages of a novel excerpt

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SO ABOUT TEN minutes later Heidi arrived at the house with her boyfriend in tow, looking as if she had stepped out of an MTV music video, her black leather jacket loaded with sequins and silver studs, her blonde hair now colored green, all frizzy and unke

two dudes talking

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“What about this shirt?” “I didn't know Gap had an ‘approaching middle age pimp' department.” “So… no?” “Yeah. No.” “Approaching middle age?” “So…” “So?” “Soooooo…”…

Fallen Women 1010

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Like all professors, I'm required to maintain office hours to help my students so I'm at my desk every fourth Tuesday of months without an "r" in them from 10:30 to 11:00 p.m.

WTF! Godot, a Sex Addict?

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The man in the gray trench coat showed up around a quarter to eight.

So If You See The Vulture Coming

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Dale of the threadbare corduroy blazer and the same two plaid button-down shirts, of the unkempt beard and short-shorn hair and holed ears, the plugs overloose and then lost so that the effect was not a toughening edginess, but deformity, the same self-in

Turtle Summer

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He was her summer fling, the first cock to crow when the sun rose over her tequila smile.

Woman

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When you move to the music of a woman

That's Grace Too

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I read the ending to her and it was clear to her--clear as it could only be to a woman, to a woman you're in love with--that I had been describing her.

This Is Who I Am

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I'm not interested in her that way.

Epithelial Sample

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I found my black dot nucleus. School got me in the 10th year with the numbers spilling outta my head, but now I got the cell on my mind. Everybody's floating around this joint all pink and green college clean, yellow face Japanese, or the jet-headed Greeks with their…