Most read stories

The Death of Narrative

19821982 views2323 comments1515 favs

“Why, you tell a story,” one young fellow said. The expression on his face said “How gauche, how passé!”

On Writing

19821982 views1616 comments77 favs

it's the very words that are the problem

If This Were Baltimore

19821982 views1515 comments88 favs

If This Were Baltimore East A spray of change in the lilies and loose rubber, she pulled close to the wall. She smiled at the trucks, her handful of loot. Hallelujah, he said, converting. West Like 4 miles of cakes, they counted…

Girma Dali - Chapter 2

19821982 views00 comments00 favs

This is Chapter 2 of my serialzied novel Girma Dali. The title character reflects upon his youth and the young boy, Benga, who mentored him into adolescence.

Limboland

19811981 views1818 comments1010 favs

She was a forward-motion girl. She never bothered to learn to walk as a baby. Instead, she stood up and ran.

Pitcher

19811981 views1010 comments44 favs

3D is killing my porn career.

Worry

19811981 views1717 comments99 favs

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

Three Sundays at The Grove

19811981 views55 comments33 favs

Now, gazing into Greg’s expectant eyes, the only Chinese word Deepti could summon was kuei. Ghost. Before that summer, her mother flipped through the pages of Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir every day, as if she could glean magic from the touch of her finge

Adrift

19811981 views33 comments11 fav

Picking up a perfect stranger—perfect meaning dead, in this case—and shaping him into the man you’d want him to be is not so easy.

WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKER

19811981 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…

The Poem

19811981 views66 comments44 favs

Riding in a pick-up-truck, the radio wailing some 'love em and leave em" country song,

Free Space

19811981 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.

Silent Summer

19801980 views1414 comments99 favs

It's eerie. There are no birds. My friend and I take our morning walk in a bubble of silence.

Stations of the Cross

19801980 views1212 comments66 favs

“Jesus fall the second time. You want a map? Ten shekels.”

Things Worth Saving

19801980 views1919 comments1717 favs

It felt like I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, like I’d walked into a house that looked like mine, but belonged to someone else.

Stuck

19791979 views22 comments11 fav

I can't rememberI woke up in the hotel room lying on the double bed staring at the ceiling. The room was painted white with one window, overlooking a brick wall, shut tight so I couldn't open it. The door leading to the outside looked appealing so I got up out…

A Body Divided, 4

19791979 views33 comments00 favs

After surviving the first night in the hospital, I was put into a shared room to save on expenses, and to make room for the deluge of new cases that were coming in, and that was when I made friends with my roommate, Tommy. He was a boy about the sam

A Boy Named Suicide

19791979 views77 comments55 favs

Came to admire Kiyoko Matsumoto. Japanese. Aged 19. Lesbian. 1933. Jumped into a volcano.

3 Good Hubcaps - song

19791979 views1212 comments88 favs

I got 3 good hubcaps That oughta be enough You can take away my house You can take away my stuff Just leave it on the curbside With my beat-up Cadillac Got my 3 good hubcaps I ain’t never coming back

The First poem.

19791979 views33 comments00 favs

Then you stopped abrupt.

Paper Horse

19791979 views77 comments66 favs

The trouble with paper horses was not how flimsy they were when you were flying them, reigns in hand, high enough above the treetops that falling would mean more than a bruised knee.

The First Soliloquy of the Interior Zombie

19791979 views99 comments66 favs

But do come close enough for me to hear.

All Art Is Betrayal

19791979 views2929 comments1616 favs

a world of probability against plague

Breaking Eggs

19781978 views77 comments44 favs

You want to read, you know where to click.

Bucolic

19781978 views44 comments22 favs

He could smell the vestiges of alcohol on his folks. They’d let him stay up till midnight to mark the new year, and his mother had sneaked him a taste of her whisky. He remembered now what she’d last said before sending him off to bed, how strange it soun

Shopping Mall Santa

19781978 views22 comments11 fav

The punk boys are my favorite. They come with an attitude, the piercings and the chains and the baggy pants with their underwear hanging out. I’m a punk myself, I tell them. The long white hair and beard? They’re real, my friend.

Crystal Tips

19781978 views44 comments44 favs

by the time he's moves onto knives, she has appeared in next door's window: sliver of nut-pale belly, fingers wet with suds, nails painted bright as glitterballs.

Significant Things

19771977 views00 comments00 favs

“This is a Kneeling Bus.” They’re all kneeling buses, why do they even have to say that? Almost every person gets off in the front now when it says it even says right on the bus to please move to the back and exit from the rear side doors. I hate having t

Actor-Activist

19771977 views00 comments00 favs

A dark-haired, handsome man adjusted the headset he was wearing, leaned toward a microphone, and eyed his host, a curly-haired man with a toothy grin, who sat up straight as he received a cue from his producer.

Aguilas Range

19771977 views88 comments44 favs

When I was thirteen and still lived in the desert I saw a ghost woman at the top of a dry waterfall in the foothills.