Most recent stories

Touchstone Excerpt: Chapter 20, 'Ring'.

230230 views77 comments33 favs

The rush of noise inside her head was making her breath short and her palms clammy and there was nowhere for her to run. She couldn’t fight. She had no reason to smash him in the face, but her hand trembled with the urge to do violence as she rubbed it up

His Heart’s In the Right Place

852852 views22 comments00 favs

Andy was puzzled. “Why, then, does everyone say my heart is in the right place?” “I think that’s just an expression,” Doc said. “It should not be taken literally.”

Writing Coach Helps Blocked Women Tap Inner Meanness

15621562 views88 comments77 favs

“Susan,” he says menacingly, as if he’s a husband who’s caught a cheating wife in a discreet liaison with another man. “I thought I made myself clear about this sort of thing.”

Uncle Max

11281128 views11 comment11 fav

Before Uncle Max died of a heart attack, he had some words of advice for his only nephew and godson. Upon his death, as instructed, a package in brown paper arrived at Jeffery Glimson’s house on a warm June afternoon.

Toothed and Thorny

12251225 views44 comments33 favs

Cliffs are not all I've known, but I've seen them every day since I came to light. When I first broke out of the shell that protected me from feet and poisons, I pushed my way into darkness. It was soil. I could not have survived if it was light, and when I surfaced there…

The Hot Earth

906906 views22 comments11 fav

don’t let them take away our youth, even if we have to beat the paint out of birds the way we did when we were young. I knew we could do anything, so let’s go back into that world and describe the new dawn all over again, even if we have to use the frozen

Life Story

16831683 views99 comments77 favs

A man lives with a woman he loves enough to live with, but not enough to marry and not enough for kids. He knows he could love others enough to marry, enough for kids, but he's not the kind of man to find those women when he's with this woman.Sometimes “love”…

Introduction and Apology Written Against the End of Time

12841284 views99 comments88 favs

They articulate my failings as a human being./ They articulate my greater rage at human beings// here for such a short time and at the precipice already

Five Million Yen: Chapter 43

13701370 views22 comments11 fav

Ben was in no mood for games. His ribs hurt and his eye was painful. He would have to tell this girl, who had flicked her tongue in his ear and who did not sound like Sophie, to get lost

bird

15271527 views1212 comments1212 favs

Your mother is a great and dying bird. Once, she tended her grand feathered nest. Once, she preened.

Lazy River Blues, or Stuck Between a Couple of Exposed Roots and an Endlessly Restless Shore

11331133 views44 comments44 favs

Our Sun bites down on the eager yet pouting lips of the softly puffy looking moon, but a jealous & runny cloud interferes with this story line just long enough for a little bit of fun: a young dancing tree washes her gold and…

Becoming an Author

18891889 views1010 comments88 favs

"good luck, and be assured acceptance for representation or publication is based on different criteria at different agencies and we are sure you will yet find someone mentally deficient enough to give your book a shot."

This Story Has No Title

12091209 views22 comments22 favs

They watch her, scald her skin with hot eyes whose stares run up and down her body like lice.

Stop

12601260 views66 comments77 favs

The dead girl was his niece’s daughter. Only thirteen years old.

Michelle from Southport

14171417 views99 comments99 favs

True story, I swear to God.

An Exhibit of Nature

627627 views00 comments00 favs

Me undressing at the side of the road, broken like an unstrung Sappho, blood lust going full force. Sexual organs like living rooms, exposed before God and everyone. Lights came on across the reservoir, and I was down on all fours in the cinders and dust,

The Condescending Skies of June

11561156 views22 comments22 favs

I have become a prisoner of my own fractured mind/ A paranoid weirdo behind the horizontal bars of window shades

After Baptism, He Speaks

16791679 views2222 comments1717 favs

The world is full of dead dogs

Ode to Monday Morning Without You

780780 views11 comment00 favs

The soiled concrete sings to me a symphony. / I try to place my ear on it but a millipede / enters my brain and consumes it: /

Spatter

15671567 views55 comments44 favs

Splat.

Learning to Love Your Permanent Stillness

16811681 views11 comment22 favs

["GET UP, GET GET, GET DOWN ... 9-11'S A JOKE IN *your* TOWN!"]

Hope and Fear

938938 views00 comments00 favs

She hears me, acknowledges me. She knows I’m bound each day, unable to make my voice heard. “It’s regrettable,” she mumbles...

Fly the Friendly Skies

20412041 views88 comments88 favs

Lucky bastard, he gets Glamour Puss and I get lady wrestler who's giving off the vibe she'll bludgeon me to death with her Bible if I make one false move.

Accuracy

12971297 views1515 comments88 favs

The form I completed yesterday filled out several attachments, including one for passive business loss. I did not believe I had incurred business loss, just that I was freelancing part-time.

The Understanding

21692169 views3636 comments2121 favs

The young boy picks up a coin that has rolled to his feet. It is warm, too warm considering the cold air streaming around him.

Unintentional Hermits- Becky

11161116 views11 comment11 fav

Suddenly she feels the urge to go, the TV lounge, with its flat Ikea furniture and black sofas where two young men glowering sprawl, is unknown territory. She can imagine those eyes, mouths, hands all over her. One of them looks up and there is an unspoke

don't let the flames chase you away

13731373 views22 comments11 fav

my maddening pyromaniac,/ you're burning up my heart/ so open up your broad-toothed mouth/ and let me pour the ashes in.

The Sentence

12811281 views00 comments00 favs

Two women are escorted to the desert, where they are shackled to the ground. Who are they, what have the done, and will they survive?

Things I Will Miss Once the Apocalypse Is Done

17221722 views2525 comments1717 favs

The scent of fresh cut grass./ The idiot sense of accomplishment/ mowing the lawn can bring.

THE OPPOSITE OF A GROWTH SPURT

16381638 views1313 comments88 favs

I’m aware I will never be a woman the night you leave me for another city