Most recent stories

The Treehouse

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I noticed Sean changed after his grounding. We no longer played night soldiers around the block, no longer biked to the creek to catch crayfish he'd crush with his boots. Sean stopped hunting lizards, stopped charging smaller kids toll to pass…

Crisp and New

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He told me it isn’t my fault. That my brain isn’t slowly and deliberately killing itself, not barbarically stripping away its own wiring to expose razor bursts of electricity.

Capitalism in the electronic age

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Then I would say to my new friends, “My God, look at all the weight you’ve lost.” Even when they hadn’t lost any. Even when they were fatter than before.

Sayōnara

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He painted a woman on them, identical to the woman that kneeled by his bed.

Woman without Time

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The men who have come to take me have science on their side. I know this is true, and yet I sit on the same bed I've had since girlhood, unable to move myself to pack even a pair of socks. What does one wear at the asylum anyway? Pajamas? Certainly my suits will be useless.…

King of Pain

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I woke up around 6 pm today. As always, mum would wake me up. I have this special bond with my bed and parting with her during my most vulnerable is anathema to my nature. Thrice mum would pull my feet and thrice I would groan hoping she would go…

sing of my neck

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You could have drawn us forth anytime on the beach, harping, begging to be let go from the grasp of your song. I needed you to sing of my neck, with its ropes teeming and filled. You only had to spread me open and loosen the shuddering country, anytime.

Garden of Allah

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(after Joan Didion) (after Charles Dickens)The car is guttering and at first I do not hear him clearly. The antenna is broken and the wipers are loud. he comes in better when I'm off the freeway. “We must forget about material things.” …

Repair Man

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The repair man is conscientious in this as he is with all things, light with his fingers and his tongue. His hair falls over his eyes as he works her.

SHAME

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My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker.

Sway

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It is said that lovers find lips in the dark through secret brain circuitry.

Zombies In The Time of Nineteen Eighty-Four

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I was watching the bustling crowd below, sipping on a teacup full of Victory Gin when the scream, no a howl, cut through the murmuring of footsteps and telescreens.

A Dutiful Daughter

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The first indication I had of what I look like came when a man put me back on the rack, remarking that I was too pink. Over the weeks that followed, I gained a few more ideas about my appearance from the comments of people in the shop. My photographic side had been…

Polly

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I taught Polly to turn on a flashlight with his nose. It became his favorite occupation and he'd sit for hours with the light between his paws, watching the things it lit—sometimes jumping up to lick the wall. He'd shine it on our daughter's…

we were not deer

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The crescent moon lies with anyone (in case you wanted to know.) And the rain – as cheaply! I don’t think anyone knows this, when they are young. When you are young, very young, you want to be included in everything. “The young that the sea took, ki

Imported Beers of the Romantic Poets

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She burps in beauty, like a frog Who sits on lily pad so green, Resounding nightly in his bog But to my eyes unseen.

The Duende

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Now he took his guitar in hand, and at once he felt a strange fiery sensation rise from the soles of his feet, to the palms of his hands, to the tips of his fingers: the Duende. It was that mystical force poets can sense, and no philosopher can explain.

Castor and Pollux

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Over the stained fence the spectres flew and that is where the rain was turning colder and colder in the time when the trees had become mostly bare.

Liebe Grüße

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Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.

Lunch at Lefty's

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Sixteen years married, and now she wants a wedding ring. He brings her a box of Cracker Jack. She doesn’t think it is funny.

deserts wept freely over you

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You had that quietness by nature (unusual in men) that I was attracted to. You were like some body of water, wide and more spiritual than anyone I knew. You could have taken me with you when you flew. I know you were more like a bird than any of the oth

End of Wendell

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...though in reality it is a dirty white with brown splotches now appears to him as a fluorescent green garden snake.

There's Love, and there's Marriage

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He didn’t used to smell that way, like a rained-on boot, like the insides of a lived-on couch. ... He used to smell like he wore light, subcutaneous cologne.

The Love She Can't Find Pt. 1

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She's a woman who travels often. Maybe for work. Maybe for mischief. She's a "free spirit" trapped by her desire for love. But she numbs it with the warmth of a new man's touch. She leaves herself reminders that often fail her or remain inconsistent. She wants to…

Turkey Day

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Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house they went, Will and his new girlfriend Emma from Atlanta for the annual family dinner and drunken disaster in Allendale.

A Return to Silence

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Instead we dunked the men in vats of grease and boiling water. Instead we tore apart the books from which they emerged. Instead we found the graves of their mothers and detonated bombs.

Against Poetry

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If you had a choice, be a poet or not, I’d suggest prose for the lines that you jot.

Broadbeach Bargain Bin

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The ice in Mum’s drink clinked as she rolled the glass across her forehead. “Ith that a gay thing or ith that a vampire thing? ’Coth I’m finding thith all a bit confuthing.”

Low down dirty fame.

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I admit it ... I started writing when I was completely depressed. When I had nothing else to do than just sit back, relax, feel bad and wait until the hurricane slowly passed by (luckily there were few casualties).I thought I was an exception ... but a lot of…

Pharmaceutical Funnies

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Dracula enters the pharmacy looking sad but hopeful. The pharmacist pulls a sonnet out of his thumb and hands it to him. This is a novel by Bugs Bunny. Each page is a…