Most recent stories

Floater

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Just because I’m suicidal doesn’t mean I don’t care about whacking my head on some service railing ten stories down. The fact that I’m going to jump doesn’t lessen my fear of propellers or a broken back.

Cripple

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"I know," Timothy explained, "he can't use it. He's a cripple." No one else seemed to understand.

A mostly true story about the TI-83

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And the only time the TI-83 sees the light of day is when I'm rectifying my debit card purchases at such places as Kmart, Office Depot, Walmart, and Office Max, to make sure everything comes out even and good and perfect, a skill never learned in Trysics,

Corvus

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Bracing himself against the wind, Zach gets to his feet without a thought for direction or destination. In the white forever of this place, there is no lantern to light the dark and bitter woods of memory. Even the croakers would find little use for such

Birth Mothers, Seeking

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A blonde girl, her youth evident beneath a cosmetic mask of bruised eye shadow and plum lipstick, claims the seat beside me on a train. A radiant six month-old gazes out from her hip, awe-struck at life, as my own son must have been at that age. I never e

Siam

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Our city is really two cities, conjoined. One lives during the day, the other at night. Those who live and breathe daytime air call the city by one name, a name which evokes the relative newness of the place, a name with words just barely invented.…

Peace and Love from the Middle of Nowhere

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Miles from anywhere that mattered, he stood by the side of the road staring at the two-lane highway that outlined the edge of suburbia like a cement fence. Steam rose from the hood of his car as he sat on the ground and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Weather

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I liked E first because she knew all the words to "Alice's Restaurant." Everybody knows "American Pie," but "Alice's," that's impressive. We used to cut class in high school and drive around listening to it, and I'd try to pretend I knew the words, but I never did, so…

Broken Bulbs - Chapter One

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And here I am again. I chew my nails. I tap my foot. I chew my nails. I sweat. I bleed. My nose bleeds. It drips. I drip. I'm dripping through my chair.

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

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Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.

Potato Mash

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Foxes haunted her dreams. Islands full of foxes, truckloads of vixen.

Saint Fred Rogers

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I am remembering this day for all days. Remembering. All days. Always. This is the day you threw the TV out the upstairs window. I'm remembering. Always. This is the day that started with you shaking the toaster over me so all the crumbs fell out.…

On Mars

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We brought oxygen with us because we knew, everyone knows, there is no air on Mars. Everyone told us this as they waved goodbye back on Earth. Jay's mom even said, “Goodbye, honey, have a nice time and remember, there's no air on Mars. Are you aware of that?”…

Running

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On the way home, “Friendly honk,” he said.

To the Bear in a Neighbor’s Tree

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In the night, a several-hundred-pound Black Bear scaled our neighbor’s back fence, bounded down the gravel footpath between our houses and, confused by the people and lights, followed his instincts up a large pine tree across the street...

Rain

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Recovering From Debt Rape

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Sure, we'll look at the causes for the lack of smackers, but, really, if you had a Swiss bank account stuffed with dinero, you wouldn't care how much your spouse's sex-change operation costs or if your boss approved of your lunch-hour massages you receive

A Hug from Rumpelbitchkin

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She shifts in her armchair, shadowed beneath the dark pitched roof, gently replaces her chipped white china teacup in its saucer. It's started again. It's how they go, their whisperings, egging younger children to climb the steps to her attic apartment, a

Fall

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She's a nurse, plugging leaks, postponing via triage. I'm an engineer, watching essential systems shut down as my body buys extra minutes.

The Monkeys and the Gun

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The young male sat off by himself and nursed his wounds and a grudge.

The Eagle and Her Chicks

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On the day they were born, the old mother eagle named her chicks Faith, Hope, and Charity.

How it all started

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I heard this story from my grandmother who heard it from her grandmother who heard it from an uncle, who was a monkey.

The Beat of Sorrow

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See a girl like Lily sitting offstage in a wooden chair in a fourth-rate club somewhere, crying, holding on so hard to so little, and as it breaks your heart to watch; forgive me. Understand me. You can’t rescue us. We all deserve more.

Pinus Timbre

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Ancient erections loom aloft ringed by decades centuries for some in gnarled scabs of pine.

running, returning

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The broken car horn wailed for 40 days and 40 nights.

Peach

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"What's that smell?" Osama glares at me from the front seat of the Trans Am. "What smell?" I say. "You smell like a diaper. Are you wearing a diaper?" Osama and Peach both laugh at me. "No... maybe, its my Baby Soft perfume. Is it too strong?"

October

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It's Halloween again, the season when my mother died.

Snake Dreams

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As soon as I pull into my father's driveway, a light goes on inside the condo. I don't have to wonder what he's doing up this time of the morning; he's always had a knack for knowing…

A Night at the Plywood Palace

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You find a wall to lie down against and focus your eyes on an orange light. You no longer hear any music. You are lying down at the bottom of a dark, green, filthy pool, holding your breath and looking up at the sun.

Why I write

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I sprawl, I spill and I splutter