Most recent stories

How Sturdy Is Your Sick Bag?

15281528 views77 comments22 favs

A wave lifted me from my seat, scattering more drops of vomit around, and I thought nastily about bringing the motion sickness bracelets back inside, dripping bags in tow, to ask for a refund.

Understanding Poetry, the Hard Way

863863 views55 comments00 favs

My relationship to poetry resembles that of Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress, to her abductors.

roses, a dozen

11521152 views66 comments00 favs

I know I shouldn’t brag, but you bought me roses, a dozen. I felt I could balance anywhere, when I was with you. I could achieve poise on the head of a pin. There was no need to hide anything, and I heard night music wherever we went. I sat with lovers,

"Changes" Isn't Just A David Bowie Song

21652165 views1111 comments88 favs

Erin Hoffmeyer Zulkoski. I was at work today, doodling on a piece of scrap paper. I often find myself writing my name, practicing my signature, for when I become famous. I have always written "Erin Zulkoski." Today, I wrote "Erin Hoffmeyer." This…

Kung Pao Turkey

22542254 views88 comments66 favs

It was my grandmother's idea of a joke, but I never realized she was joking when she repeated it every Thanksgiving. She would sit at the head table just before Uncle Leon would carve the bird and ask, "It's an American holiday. Shouldn't we be roasting an eagle…

OUT

16871687 views33 comments22 favs

All I wanted was to love her.

The Snow-Child

19411941 views00 comments00 favs

“Where are you going?” asked the young man. Teary-eyed and beaten, he gently put his hands on the shoulders of Snow-child, her back turned from him. “Home,” Snow-child said. “I'm going back to Norway.” …

Will Your Relationship Survive the Holidays?

12881288 views22 comments11 fav

For eight years I have been living with a man named Darren Fletcher, who I will refer to as “Bud” to preserve his anonymity.

london walking (empty streets)

12071207 views33 comments11 fav

st. paul is steeped in fog. mist and rain make the north side a grainy faded photograph, almost timeless.

strapped to the mast

11291129 views55 comments00 favs

The light streaming out of the background of things, in the absence of memory. That’s what I’m talking about. Prepare to let out all your light from night until dawn, if you want to be in the middle of life. I never wanted to stay at the edges. It didn’

Eat, Pray, Network

19091909 views3131 comments1414 favs

The image was startlingly unfamiliar. Looking at it, no one would guess it had been their last attempt, their last failure. No one would believe that they had never really been that way, or that the life they shared was built on mind games, manipulation a

Dad and the Red Light

16541654 views1212 comments99 favs

The light turns green.

fish gut buckets

15301530 views22 comments00 favs

The pier stretched out by where sharks came and men waited with beautiful dirty buckets that held strange and dangerous things, buckets with fish guts, buckets with blood, with character, buckets like prophets or a gritty desert walking saviour like Chris

Lay on Me

24062406 views3535 comments2626 favs

On Friday nights I'm not there.

Return To Sender.

11991199 views00 comments00 favs

"...his previous prognosis of never being able to walk again has been upgraded to 'severe and debilitating physical pain and mental anguish,' so maybe there really IS a God!"

2-D CUCKOLDS IN TV SOAPS

12101210 views00 comments00 favs

Tread acres and acres of aches

Letting Go

18241824 views55 comments44 favs

Jerrod's lips and tongue were like slabs of bologna someone shook in Kirsten’s face as she hit the turn signal. Kirsten was proud of herself. She'd been taking it well and she was pretty sure her real feelings weren’t poking through.

not all scars are the same

16031603 views55 comments33 favs

All I wanted to know was: Am I coming close? You could have given me a clue. How was I to know how deep the scar ran? I always thought scars were superficial, but I was young, and willing – what did I know? What would they have done if they had come

Fruit and Vegetable

36833683 views99 comments44 favs

I walk into the fruit and vegetable market and she sees me right away. I've been trying to avoid her and have been successful for more than three weeks. The break-up was not a good one. I still have a scar over my left eye where the glass ashtray hit me.

An Articulation of Blades

14881488 views55 comments33 favs

The new king hunted often. We heard her whirring above, the terrible whirring a forest of—, and she drifted over our city half dangling from the chopper, rifle barrel glinting.

What you're waiting for.

15981598 views00 comments00 favs

I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.

Class

12071207 views11 comment00 favs

Before they ever spoke, Linda and Meg had sat next to each other in the cramped lecture hall for three weeks, their thighs touching, while Dr. Laurens showed slides of ancient Japanese art. Meg's eyes never left the screen, but Linda glanced at her as often as she…

The Art of Joy

18641864 views00 comments00 favs

The girl who was me stands in a sandbox with upraised arms, honey hair tied with olive yarn in two ponytails. She says nothing, but wants me to pick her up.

Mission of Mercy Brings Vowels to Kyrgyzstan

823823 views00 comments00 favs

“Me–I am too old for help now,” says Askr Bakyv. “But perhaps it is not too late for them,” he says, pointing to his son and two daughters. “They are the future.”

just one more time, God, I promise

10341034 views00 comments00 favs

The last time I was with Terry, she surprised me by crossing herself just before we had sex. She too had been going out with this Mario pimp, with his ski boat out on Fox River. The guy who was going around sniffing after most (if not all) of my old gir

Genesters

14021402 views44 comments33 favs

There once was a lake skipping stone and it skipped, five times, the end... Ceiling fluorescents brilliant in the white space opened to the exterior of the Hog n' Bluster hero shop through the narrow glass front and shown out to the empty brick paved commons of…

The Tale of the Donut and the Éclair

17831783 views11 comment11 fav

“I scheduled some time today to talk to you about something…something important. Since you’re going on with your life, leaving everything you’ve known so far, you’re going to need some information about sex.”

Cold, wet and dreary.

11481148 views77 comments22 favs

Cold, wet and dreary.The three words that describe Belgium. A country that owns so little identity. Sure, there are the mussels, beer, wafels and chocolate ... But that's about as far as it goes. The lack of identity rules the country, grayness rules the horizon. And…

Table for One

13851385 views22 comments11 fav

He keeps re-reading the menu but knows already how it ends..

Name

14491449 views11 comment11 fav

Every day, I write myself further away From the East Where we began