Most read stories

Brother Dream

20792079 views22 comments11 fav

It’s always daylight there My brother comes running down the sidewalk holding out his arms and calling my name He’s wearing suspenders. He’s gotten thinner in heaven He embraces me warmly wanting us to be friends I give up trying to re

Old Salty

20792079 views66 comments33 favs

Cap'n Pepper tries and tries but Old Salty is never happy.

Cure

20792079 views2323 comments1515 favs

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

Hardaway's Poems Piss Off DC Bigwig

20792079 views1111 comments44 favs

Gladstone called him a ‘goddam nihilist’--

Beyond the Voice

20792079 views88 comments55 favs

We might as well be honest: we’re talking about the two of us here. No one, not even the cameraman, had any idea even after all these years. For more than a decade we’d been bringing the six o’clock news into a medium-almost-major market region.

Carlos The Impossible (Part 1)

20792079 views22 comments11 fav

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

Breaking Eggs

20782078 views77 comments44 favs

You want to read, you know where to click.

New Carpet

20782078 views22 comments00 favs

How curious that the thought arrived first in Portuguese; perhaps, after so many years, he was finally becoming Brazilian.

Ishpeming

20782078 views55 comments55 favs

Ishpeming straddles Lake Superior to Marathon, reaches into the water, pulls out a clump of frozen hotdogs, breaks them apart one by one, rolls them between its fingers, heats them on the thigh of its corduroy pants, and throws them into the sky. Comets t

A Short Film About Baseball

20782078 views99 comments66 favs

The throw was the last leg of a triple play.

Seed Toss

20782078 views1313 comments1111 favs

Know what you’ll become? You’ll become one of those guys who masturbates in any single occupancy restroom that locks.

Butterfly, a novel by Julie O’Yang (excerpt)

20772077 views55 comments33 favs

‘So what exactly did you decide?'It was two years later that Sato-san put the question to me. The two of us had been hiding for two bloody years, moving about in the marshes along the river, living off small, skimpy meals. We couldn't turn back to our unit, because Cesaru…

Having the Boys to Tea

20772077 views11 comment00 favs

And my word! Wouldn’t you know it, in two shakes of a jiffy they have shucked off all their clothes and are butt naked right here in my den. I don’t have to wonder what Mother would say if she could see them here. “Keep the noise down, boys!” I ha

Fear

20772077 views00 comments00 favs

Vito sat alone on a bench, hunched over, staring at his running shoes. He wasn't having fun. The club wasn't nearly as crowded as usual. There were no outlandishly-dressed or made-up people present. Most in attendance were huddled directly before the band

Ornamental Onion

20772077 views77 comments33 favs

i imagined myself & i was phlox saxifrage pompom ranunculus poppy anemone ornamental onion rattlesnake red ribbon nerine & i loved the painted tongue & i wore the rattlesnake

Muslin

20772077 views1515 comments99 favs

Outside I see the daytime moon, and it is faint as a fingerprint. My cousins have up-turned the biggest rocks and removed all the Sow bugs. The land is damp and red, and the trees feel wet to the center.

Halloween Hangover

20762076 views1414 comments1313 favs

Did someone say BOO?

You'll Have To Come Out Because I Won't Let You In

20762076 views66 comments33 favs

the pollen of your kisses and the shouts of your love shaking the sky

When you were nine

20762076 views1111 comments1010 favs

When you were nine your head fell off in the playground. Dr Mort was called. He pasted it back on with PVA glue. You'd never know now.——When you were nine your arms turned into trees. Dr Mort worked his magic with the chainsaw. You still need light pruning once…

Slow Train

20762076 views66 comments44 favs

In grief, I'd ride a slow train there with you, / one hand in yours and one hand on the rail,

You Never Knew

20762076 views33 comments11 fav

You never knew How to express What you didn't know You felt With your words You picked on You taunted You destroyed Did it help To feel yourself Did it work To disparage Those who were Innocent and young Blameless For living …

20th Century Anna

20762076 views77 comments44 favs

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

Écriture de la chatte

20762076 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.

That's Grace Too

20752075 views1212 comments33 favs

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.

Phantasmagoria

20752075 views33 comments11 fav

I sit in my chemise like a forgotten rag doll on the stool before my vanity. My body is postured towards nothing in particular, my gaze keeps returning to vacant; it’s far preferable to any fixed sight it could find.

Iowa Voters

20752075 views1818 comments1010 favs

I miss my fire from the first three races

Personal Trenches

20752075 views99 comments33 favs

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.

Free Space

20752075 views1010 comments99 favs

The winner was some kid from Ohio or Oklahoma -- one of those states that begins with an "O" and ends with a yawn.

Blueberries

20752075 views66 comments11 fav

Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…

The Wish

20742074 views00 comments00 favs

Now coins used for wishing are not like coins used to purchase bread or carrots. Coins that have been invested with the magic of hopes and desires are special and have special properties. The difference between wishing coins and ordinary coins is very subtle.