Most read stories

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…

a night on the f'naut

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with images overflowing with delicate thought scenes with nightmarish wet dreams

Roadside Daisies

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The phone rang. Pete wiped his heavy eyes and squinted so he could see. He looked at the clock. It was five o’clock in the morning. He rolled over and tucked his head under his pillow. The phone rang again. He ignored it. It rang again. He picked up.

My First Sonogram

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As I was checking out with the receptionist, Dope came barging through the door and told the guy at the front desk that I needed to be booked for this sonogram “right away, like within the next 72 hours.” My hands started to shake and my lower body b

Momo and Me

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Momo told me not to mind her, but I did. At night, after he'd tucked me in, I could hear him on the phone in the living room, talking for a long time. Early this morning he woke me up and gave me my backpack. ‘Put some clothes in here', he said. ‘We're going on a trip.'

NOVEL EXCERPT: Jimmy Gollihue

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Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound, a long voice from up the mountain, and the baying of the dog pulled a keening lament from his dream of the highway.

Tornado Diary

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The storm grew in might until it spawned the worst kind of tornado, an F-5 or Finger of God.

Worry

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I turned on the television last night, and one of the networks had a segment about a girl with no nose.

Boo!

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"Why didn't you tell me it was Halloween?" he asked. She shook her head. The doorbell rang.

Guardians

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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.

Denmark (or On the Death of John Updike)

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The impression old Updike left on a young mind.

Poets House, NYC (revised)

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Oh, you can’t stay, your poetry/ Is still out in the world, maybe when you die/Your volumes will make their way/Not just here but everywhere

SantaBot, Can You Hear Me?

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Mimi: Santa, I am so down with taking a number, but I really can't have you reading that particular story. Santa: Let me be the judge of that. I am Santa. I give presents to kids.

Swimming Lessons

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The trainers looked at her and smiled and they were still one creature with four legs and two heads. The old man’s left eye moved in sync with the younger one’s right eye.

He's Just Not That Into You -Part I

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“Too perfect.” my therapist intervenes in assurance, “You did enough, really. More than anyone else would.” I know the subtext is that I possibly did more than I should. My appointment is coincidentally later that day, after his goodbye letter arrives in

Golden

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No flinch, no stretch, no letting the cook get all golden about the chopping block.

With Ann Coulter on the Jewish Conversion Tour

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A little bony for my tastes–I wonder if she’s on the Lady Di diet. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers, but it would be like sleeping with Eva Braun.

Jen the First

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"kissing her with every muscle in my neck."

Carrion Flower

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Jacabo gave the boy a can of beer with oxycontin and rat poison in it. He instructed the boy to drink and talk. Jacabo did this, fully aware that making ghosts was a costly enterprise.

And her child

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The mother was happy, though. She was happy because she could make him some soup and then she could feed it to him in bed.

hide the dildos

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her: what are you worried about? me: the dog sitter.

What To Believe

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Being simple like this, knowing a thing is done by doing.

Chairs and Mirrors

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There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.

Vernon, Last Seen In Hawaii

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Dear Bess — I go to the First Assembly of God's church. (a Praising Spirit-Filled Fellowship.) It is in Maui. Dr. James Morocco, Senior Pastor. He has been pastoring the church for over twenty years. My, what a big change I am finding in my new l

Like An Endless Rain

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Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.

After Detox

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When detox-man drives away, the windows down, the radio playing on the classic rock station (The Eagles), he thinks about moving out of town.

A Dispatch from an Enivironmental Lawyer Who is Trying to Grow a Mustache

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Angelina Jolie, seducer of Brad Pitt, tattooed mother of rescued orphans, and the unlikely daughter of Jon Voight who broke Billy Bob Thornton's heart, is only two blocks from me, in a travel trailer on Seventh Street, gently rousing herself from sleep.

World Trade Center

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I can feel the souls of those who perished here They’re still here like old kites hanging in the sky tattered, but they won’t come down or can’t come down just yet because they haven’t fulfilled their unborn promises t

Phantom Sister

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We wonder if this is how we tangled in our mother's womb: hands to feet to heart.

Postcard

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"Special delivery for a friend?" he asked. "Postcards are a wonderful thing. All people want to do nowadays is send e-mails. But what's better than putting a postcard on the fridge?"