Most recent stories

42 Mirrors

14631463 views22 comments22 favs

What becomes the identity of a woman who has been denied all her rights and thrown into a mental institution?

Generous World

10341034 views55 comments33 favs

perhaps because it knows that time’s a solvent/ and dissolves all things in time.

The Sound Of Zippers In Context

620620 views1717 comments1515 favs

There is, between us, a flickering lantern. We're not tired yet but the bugs are converging and hitting the side of the tent. The little ones, the mosquitoes, the gnats, the noseeums, they're finding their way in in spite of the zipped up mosquito nettin

You're Never Going to Break My Heart

873873 views22 comments22 favs

Like any lovable lump of hidden rocks, these hills she breathes life into, blinking existence, are all well worth jumping up and over again and again. Just ask the little kids. Their endless landscape of discovery…

Eleutheria

25692569 views2121 comments2020 favs

She watched an inky cloud suck all the color / from the trees.

“Adrien Brody,” Adrien Brody, and Adrien Brody’s Nose: A Response to Tao Lin’s Response to “Tumblr ‘Shit-Talking’”

16501650 views11 comment11 fav

Here is “Adrien Brody” through a Freudian lens: Calloway wanted to fuck her father. She flew to New York City to fuck a version of her father who has a name similar to an actor with an interesting nose and a lot of talent. Neither Calloway nor the actor n

Phil's Last Stand

17861786 views11 comment22 favs

Phil was scared. Not of his own shadow, but of the three men from ConAgra who'd dropped a duffel bag of green outside his den the week before.

Let me tell you about the smell of the rain.

20502050 views99 comments55 favs

You are lonely. Let me tell you about the smell of the rain.

beepbeepbeep

19621962 views00 comments11 fav

Howard needed to finish this time. As his marriage slid further down the sinkhole toward divorce, it was important to him that his affair be successful.

Extra Ticket

15371537 views11 comment11 fav

My best friend died yesterday. His name was Franklin Seever, but we all called him Lin. It started when we were in Little League. There were two Franklins on the team so Coach, who was my dad, called the fat one Frank and my best friend Lin.

The Untold Story

16391639 views22 comments11 fav

I kept a journal for so many years I've forgotten everything I wrote.

Antarctica

10991099 views11 comment11 fav

I don't have the feelings of self-worth a young woman should have, Monica Lewinsky tells the nation. She seems to understand there will always be some amount of ice beneath her.

No Word for Enchantment

13371337 views1111 comments66 favs

fanned lashes on rouged cheek a glamorous sea creature in violet perfume

The Naming

13881388 views99 comments88 favs

we name invasive species,

How I Made My Fortune

17761776 views00 comments00 favs

At the time I first went to work for Mr. Byron my family was in a sorrowful state. My dad, much as I can recall, was one of those roving kinds, called himself a carpenter or contractor, depending on the kind of job he was aspiring to, and was subject to f

Portrait of the poet as midwife

17641764 views44 comments44 favs

Some poems slip out easily Thick and solid Well-oiled and fully formed

Last Night On Oil Street

23492349 views1212 comments1313 favs

Tomorrow the authority smashes. Tonight we march, splash, carve letters in wet paint from room to room until steel blades bend. The letters will tilt in shadows gliding over the walls to mask our tales born of fractured wrists and the ghosts, our keepers.

Horizon

14291429 views99 comments22 favs

She liked talking to him, even now, when they’d spent three years talking. She thought about other conversations with other men at other bars, some of the bars on the water and some of them tucked behind shopping centers or off of different h

Notebook (excerpt)

12321232 views66 comments44 favs

I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.

Shuffle

11121112 views11 comment00 favs

Something is clearly wrong with them and we're supposed to socialize them.

Eidetic (from OPEN CITY Magazine Number 16)

17901790 views11 comment11 fav

Who do you think are the true intellectuals? I'm a fan of both Gore Vidal and Harold Bloom although most people can't stand either of them. George Plimpton is interesting...

Never

10501050 views00 comments00 favs

When a woman dies too young, Say at 42, Her bones broken, Her body bruised Beyond recognition Much less repair; When she dies Thrashing In the street Amid rainbow-hued pools Of water and gasoline And blood, Anointed on a bed Of broken glass In a…

Glue

14031403 views11 comment11 fav

There is no cement stronger than the one holding a miserable couple together.

Plath's Plague

22092209 views1111 comments99 favs

Before my mother died, she developed an unhealthy relationship with Sylvia Plath. Under the faded florescent lights of the university they would speak to each other, as I quietly did my homework. I was only seven, but I knew something was the matter. I…

How To Profit As Copper Becomes The New Gold

23672367 views1313 comments1212 favs

We have no more leaders, only rulers who live in another country. I don't ask why my cousin's hand is bandaged, what he's been burning, what's tarped in his truck.

Arcana Magi Divine

16191619 views11 comment00 favs

Amyra pressed her hands on the brick wall and rubbed it. She thought about hanging something on there, but she did not have the tools to make a hole. In fact, the thought of having a hole in the wall would be enough.

On Writing about Velveeta

20372037 views11 comment11 fav

You are fishing in a coffee cup. (Your fishing pole is a record player.)

Aloha

17581758 views1010 comments99 favs

It’s a little known fact that eels are often lost in translation – only the spotted variety, not the striped or the common and certainly not the electric.... I think about that lovely hippie girl and her knowledge of eels, sometimes.

Break Time in the Army Corps of Engineers Mascot Lounge

21932193 views11 comment22 favs

The Army Corps of Engineers spent $92,000 in federal stimulus money on costumes for mascots such as Bobber the Water Safety Dog.

Hurricane Shutters

17001700 views44 comments66 favs

The thing that really gets you about the house is the hurricane shutters. They're up already, even though it's the end of May, because Buck's uncle is back in Rhode Island for the summer and he's prepped the house on Key Largo like Armageddon is coming.