Most read stories

1987, What I wanted

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I wanted to watch, for as long as I could, until my innocence, like balloons, disappeared from view.

Sharp Was the Blade: chapter from Ari Figue's Cat

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You do not open the wound all at once. You do not slice or cut or slash. You stroke, as a lover's finger strokes the skin of her beloved. You slide the blade lightly over the surface. You do not think, I am hurting myself. You do not think, pain. You slid

Hands of a City

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On the usefulness of hands.

After Tom Phillips

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but still whisper the brick / and mortar details in both ears / at once, twice.

Carmencita and the Virgin

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It's blues, bars and boots since you went away. You were wiferustled like sheep, like cattle.

Arcana Magi - c.15: Chisame Murakami, Sentinel of Genbu

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The water burst into droplets of rain and fell on top of her. Chisame laughed out loud, a joy that overwhelmed her as she repeated this feat over and over.

Meanwhile

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I saw/ star shine in/ my silver pail

American Birthdays

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Cherry was America's least favorite pie. Her mother made it every year for her father's birthday because "daddy doesn't like cake." America had to wash the bowls, the wooden spoon, the plates and finally the Pyrex dish. Her brother got to "contribute" by climbing the tree…

Plans and The World

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You are terrified. You light/ the autopilot light and trust// the small machineries of self/ to land things safely,

Girl Four

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She followed the husband. He headed north on seventy two for twelve miles, turned off at exit eighty seven b, slowed, turned, backed into a spot at a convenience store slash gas station, lights on, engine running. Precisely twenty seven minutes by her count,…

Hors d'oeuvre

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What scares her about libraries are unshelved books, the ones you thumb through while you are waiting for the elevator, because you realize that there are too many books in the world and you are holding that particular book only because it is lost.

Casting It

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Truth came out of it, a little bug that hovered there...

When the Witness Calls

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Here they come, those witnesses.

My Anonymous Career

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I signed on with a large national restaurant chain to write descriptors for menus, and I was the very first to use the term "farm-fresh" to refer to eggs.

Red

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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…

The Killer

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It don't knock you down to the goddamned ground and push your face into the mat and dare you to get back up. Just so it can knock you down again. They don't have real dreams. Dreams that make them wake up in the middle of the night. Hurting. Wanting.

The Great Bank Run of 1912

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She bought her first gerbil at the age of nine. She wondered if he would die from endless logrolling. When he died from natural causes, she refused to bury him and kept a distance from the first boy who kissed her--Thomas J. Hobbit. The next year a twister swept…

Flirting With Immortality

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That stupid bastard seemed to defy death at every turn in his life. His actions suggested invincibility, but his catch phrase indicated full awareness that he was indeed quite vincible. And how fitting was his name. We didn’t know if it

What She Gave to the Sea

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1.There's a young woman in a nightclub seated next to a window out of which she watches the slow descent of snow, illuminated by strategic lights. She imagines herself falling with those flakes. Her friend has left her for the dance floor. The young woman is…

Officer Friendly

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The last time Ray and I broke up, I flew my flag at half-mast. It was the kind of thing that pissed him off. He was very big on flag etiquette: how the flag should be folded, the fact that it should never touch the ground, when to fly it at half-mast, the rules regarding…

the morality of pens: a sonnet

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poets can kill, or at least they once could:/ perhaps poems tamed us, if they are any good.

Carlos The Impossible (Part 1)

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And so the deal was struck. It was arranged that the empresario for the Plaza Mexico would buy the giant bull from Button for Hernando to fight. Come the Fiesta de la Fuerza Irresistible, the Great One would meet the bull that was born of a thunderclap at

Some Nature Haiku

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The proud, burly tree / Rests on the now crashed TV / Thanks a lot, nature

Arcana Magi Zero - v.2: Megumi's Fable, the Advance

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“Is it a dream? Or is it real?” Questions Megumi asked herself as she stood before the mirror. She no longer had fox ears or a fox tail. Even her long brown hair had turned jet black and her lavender eyes were a natural green just like Alysia’s.

Saint Fred Rogers

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I am remembering this day for all days. Remembering. All days. Always. This is the day you threw the TV out the upstairs window. I'm remembering. Always. This is the day that started with you shaking the toaster over me so all the crumbs fell out.…

Slime

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Once or twice he sees her around town when he’s out driving but other than that, I mean, it’s not like he was stalking her, he didn’t know where she went to school or what she did for a part-time job, he didn’t care, he wasn’t interested.

The Days of The Olde Burying Yard

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“Phennias Jessup is his name. That’s his death’s head scroll, an hourglass, bats, spirals and angel’s wings on either side of the top part of the stone. "

Weary

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At this time of night, the fluorescence makes his eyes bleed. The muscles in his legs are tight; walking's more of a necessity than anything else. Alexander pushes the shopping cart down the endless gray tile floors of the Grand Union on 35.

Mama

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So, I rough her up with sand paper, and hit her with chains, making dents. She examines her surfaces, tidily and efficiently, indicating the spots most in need of filling in with scratches and scrapes.

Let's All Get Up And Dance To A Song That Was A Hit Before Beyonce Was Born

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Why don't we do it in a yellow submarine?