Most read stories

Écriture de la chatte

19161916 views1919 comments88 favs

YKK is a zipper manufacturer whose initials stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha. A boy told me (and I believed as a child) that YKK was my name in code.

I Made You . . . (April Fool's Day Challenge)

19151915 views77 comments44 favs

You cheat with a stripper--joke I told to your wife. I didn't know that she couldn't take a goof.

Clouds to the Makers

19151915 views1313 comments1111 favs

You'll be gone. I'll be gone. I'd hate to think how it was all for nothing, that all we did was stumble into a pretty big hole of our own making. The best place for a broken heart after all is in your own sweet chest. No one else…

Like An Endless Rain

19151915 views22 comments11 fav

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.

Fragile Things

19151915 views1010 comments99 favs

She asks me what she should do, and I say I don't know because I'm no good at handling fragile things. She says, let's talk about you. I say I can't - phone signal, you know. She calls me anyway, twice, then leaves a message saying that she just wanted to

The First poem.

19141914 views33 comments00 favs

Then you stopped abrupt.

A Woman Who Watches

19141914 views1212 comments88 favs

She was a beautiful woman. I don't argue with that. I welcome it.

Miguel's Fence

19141914 views99 comments88 favs

Miguel's mom told everyone if you pressed your ear against the knot, Jesus would tell you special secrets.

Cure

19141914 views2323 comments1515 favs

It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.

Hail Mary Pass

19141914 views99 comments55 favs

so for penance, the priest gave me the full twelve Stations of the Cross

Destroy the Evidence

19141914 views55 comments44 favs

The oven door topples off of its hinges as she kicks and climbs out. She growls and quickly slaps out her still smoldering sweater shoulder. Taking a kitchen chair by the back, she swings it over her head and shatters the window. The chair breaks into splinters as she…

The Front Window at Starbucks, NYC

19141914 views77 comments66 favs

His eyes drift over the body of every woman who enters Starbucks, even though he’s old enough to be their father or grandfather, still his eyes are aware of every shape passing by, refusing to let go, and die. Maybe they’re speaking Polish or

The Pixie

19131913 views1111 comments77 favs

On the bank of the stream, we take off our clothes and dash into the water.

Dreams-in-progress

19121912 views1313 comments77 favs

A team of reggae journalists played and an unknown man came after work for me in a kilt.

Holding Hands in Public

19121912 views55 comments00 favs

Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

Ten Tequila Shots

19121912 views22 comments22 favs

After sprouting boobs and a vagina before her sixteenth birthday, a girl watches her divorced father fall from parental grace by drinking ten tequila shots and baring it all for the neighbors to see on his birthday.

Just Another Hero

19111911 views44 comments44 favs

Alma Tucker settled into middle age with the comfort that escapes most women. Her festival queen days gone. Along with her wispy waist and cherry blond hair, replaced by broader curves and graying tresses. She was content with the way age had changed her

Day's Heat and Mistaken Winters

19111911 views66 comments11 fav

Elizabeth stood outside my door one afternoon. I greeted her from across the studio, put on some water to boil and walked to the door. I took her hand, held it to my cheek, and led her to my dining room table.

WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKER

19111911 views1616 comments1616 favs

WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKERWhen his fingers sped along the keys, I'd need to sit. I'd such weak knees. I thought him charming, tall, and able, then he overturned the table. Chili, crackers, cheddar cheese crashed on me-he'd been displeased. I…

My First Post-9/11 Dream: In Which I Discover Life After Death

19111911 views00 comments00 favs

January 3rd EST/January 2nd PST 2002 It's 1:45 am or 10:45 pm depending on your philosophy about changing your watch when you fly. My plane is scheduled to land in San Francisco soon, but I'm completely disoriented because I've just had my first post-9/11 dream. …

Obituary

19101910 views22 comments22 favs

Patrick Savage, who has died aged 29, was a poker player fast on his way to becoming a cult figure in the music scene.

Five Bucks.

19101910 views00 comments00 favs

“For Chrissake! Just get me one of fucking Tony's half-assed, made in China bullshit, getaway cars. My plate is hot!” I had never hated cars so much before. Not so much the cars, but the sound the cheap ones made when they drove past my house. The…

Bad Attitude

19091909 views77 comments44 favs

Start with a long look down the alley, a small hoodied figure turning in.

Eggman

19091909 views99 comments99 favs

The last one I tipped over the edge was just like all the others: fragile, pale, humming to himself as he sat on the ledge overlooking the gardens.

Europe, 1960

19091909 views2323 comments2222 favs

The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

july 23

19091909 views88 comments55 favs

I get that drunk feeling right before it starts to rain. The sky is dark and heavy and the clouds break open with a flash and suddenly there is water running down all of the windows like one million pairs of eyes crying hard. The street is suddenly …

Freeway Deaths Attributed to Talk Radio

19091909 views66 comments00 favs

"I was just coming home from work listening to Consumer Dave," said Murrietta resident Mick Baylor, through his attorney, "when my eyelids started getting droopy. And he was just talking about how Circuit City was going out of business and I was. . .well,

patti, did art get us?

19091909 views1111 comments88 favs

often as i lie awake i wonder are you awake too?/ we never had any children, he said ruefully/ that summer i cried so much that robert called me soakie/ robert, dying: creating silence

Suppose, I ask my friend

19081908 views11 comment11 fav

nothing has ever happened in this or that or any other or maybe too damn many parallel universes. . . .

At This Particular Moment

19081908 views1111 comments88 favs

in time there is nothing more important for meto write than this line. It isn't defined in the way you'd like perhaps, but it doesn't matter because it will be true, and you will be true, and I will be the message you get. Some signal has…