Most recent stories

The Rug

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Marge bought the rug on-line.

How to Survive Your First Breakup (Anxiety)

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And don’t you dare start panicking. Just sit there silently, letting the truth that you’re alone sear the back of your neck until it starts to feel cold.

Tabula Rasa

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accidental ground/ for index-fingered figures

One Sick, Two Sick, Red Sick, Blue Sick

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I found a diseased fish / wedged between some boulders near the pier

The Watchers

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Up at the top, a quarter mile south, billows of black smoke crawled up the faint blue of the sky.

fealty

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just before my break,/ he came on the line,/ old and slow with computers now/ but wanting a discount/ he'd been told he qualified for.

Missed

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How I felt in Ireland.

The Dog

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They stood at the intersection waiting for the light to change so they could cross the highway.

questions, alas

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If in one instant of follie I plea to you What am I? would you then not ask yourselfwhat are We?Would you think maybe We are oneand I would ask to you my loveCan One, then, be transformed into Two? What is left of one after the sum?Can two be touched or…

What the Doormat Said

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It's not my fault I was made to be stepped on, so stop saying what I am with such contempt. Yes, I'm a doormat. No, I'm not weak. I have taken a hundred kinds of treads, twice as many pounds at once, and once or twice there have been cleats. Think about what those would do…

mondays get all the heat

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when i was five or six/ we lived in an apartment/ and every sunday/ i'd lie on the carpet/ to watch squares of sunshine/ crawl across the rug/ while my mother inflicted upon us/ a centuries-long hour of television/ worse than any droning mass.

Residual

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Our afterlife depends upon// what interesting shape

All Art Is Betrayal

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a world of probability against plague

Your Call Is Not Very Important To Us

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Please stay on the line. Or don't stay on the line. We don't care. If we cared about your call, we'd answer it. Which, to be honest, isn't going to happen. We're going to make you hold. And while you hold, we're going to subject you to some really bad…

Cancer Always Calls Collect - Part 13 - Revival of the Fittest

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My body continues to tread water through its daily existence and each day challenges me to find some sort of grounding. I often wonder who needs taking care of as I find myself sometimes spiraling in a downwards cycle-- not even taking a required break

Supernova

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Ben had us over, me and him and his boy, Benji, to look at the supernova. Ben was always coming up with these things with the telescope. Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings. On his wedding night he made everybody stop dancing and run out to the golf course so he could show us…

Dust to Dust

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He began to chop the powdery substance and separate it into segments.

Pops

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My father is the kind of man to shout at you / just because you took the wrong road / at least the road that he’s not used to...

OUR NEXT BREAK

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You welcome the new girl by putting a message on her back. I breathe harder until she pops or until you ask me what I’ve seen or until you see my hand turn into a fist.

Sof a

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My softness craves your weight. Give me your shape, and I won't resist it. Or, rather, I will but just enough to recall it. I can only give that much, and that's my fatal flaw. If I were a more pliable thing, I could let go of these impressions. The stains—coffee,…

Only Shadows

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There is a whisper in the shadows

Five Million Yen: Chapter 46

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This artist has a wonderful sense of line and color. Abstract is not my métier, but I appreciate the art behind this painting. It helps to copy it. You sleep with it for a time and, like a woman, you learn her passions and taboos.

Hobo's Pastor

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The three of us traveled seven hours that day and Al traveled as far in the service of finding the right tool for his writing.

Even in the Same Room

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as you are, there's a big floating arm that separates both of us from each other. Widening, like a river, it touches us together often, but still keeps us drifting apart. The banks of your new life have different weeds and flowers…

At the Number Party

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and dreamed itself infinite.

Summer Party Advice, From Father to Son

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“Madras shorts with those candy-ass Brooks Brothers shirts? If you wear stripes with plaids, you’ll look like a TV test pattern.”

Sad Songs

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She was thrilled when she learned that her best friend was having an affair.

Terror From Above

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As airplanes fly low over her children playing in the kiddie pool on the front lawn, Maureen learns something else about her father's new house that lies in the flight path of an international airport.

Dead Parental Units

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Each death a sonnet, every grief / fourteen lines.

Can I Get a New To-Do List

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I got a male bouffant hairdo like Trump I can’t wait to develop patience And the next time I have a ringing in my head I’m not going to answer it Can I Get a New To-Do List? I tried changing my name to Richard Vixen Until the State Dept. too