Most recent stories

Catching Forks

11091109 views22 comments11 fav

Last night Jim taught me how to catch forks. Meaning, he taught me how to throw them. But he called it catching forks. It was late, and we were low down 3rd street, south of the Bay Bridge, the baseball stadium, all the people and cars, on top of a warehouse. There were a…

A Conversation Between Bacon and Eggs

11591159 views55 comments00 favs

In a hot splattering we were born

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

12451245 views55 comments11 fav

The light against the nylon walls of the tent gets me feeling a little down. The air's wet inside, but it's warm. The whole world outside is creaking and chirping, everything that wakes up with the dawn's first tepid blue light does so and starts making n

Fluff

961961 views11 comment00 favs

I saw the little family that lives under the neighbor's backyard deck two weeks before while decapitating grasslets

These Dreams We Are Having

10121012 views22 comments11 fav

It is just a little break from the colicky baby who has finally fallen asleep. Just a little break, maybe a half hour. And the faulty heater, that wolf at the door, knows that and will take his chance. The two of you are lying on your backs, both of yo

{Pulgas}

11481148 views22 comments11 fav

Fleas were a constant reminder that humans are food.

How I Left Onandaga County

13901390 views1010 comments44 favs

So, like I said. Da. I have dealt with the men, when I was a lap dancer. The men they need the….manipulations. I have good hands. They want me to see them naked, their power. Here it is only the women. The massage, the facial, the waxing...

The Way Home

19401940 views1919 comments1414 favs

I’m in the Grand Central Station bar-- the one at the top of the stairs-- waiting for my husband to enter so I can watch him. The bar is crowded, everyone getting in that last beer before heading back to whiney children and tired spouses.

Red Line

714714 views11 comment11 fav

The train it was Quiet people asleep It was 4:30 am. I lost her face with the wind. She never gave me her I never asked for her Number she …

{Fog}

11721172 views22 comments11 fav

Sometimes it waited after dark, when everyone was asleep, and moved in slowly like a thief, working its way into all the ruwas, up everyone's nostrils, seemingly intent on making the people's mountain existence a troublesome one

December 1999

16091609 views1010 comments1010 favs

... and you can’t balance your checkbook or divide a three-way bill in a restaurant but you can still recite all the sixteen ways of SHAUN CASSIDY TELLS: 16 WAYS TO TURN ME ON!

James

10261026 views00 comments00 favs

And I mean part of me wanted to let him eat me, I thought maybe I owed him my body because I couldn’t enter his mind and I really wanted to on some level but we both knew that him eating me would just make us both feel awful—him because he’d wake up

Rittenhouse Square: excert from Ari Figue's Cat

14651465 views00 comments00 favs

Trunks of plane trees with parchment bark, their shaggy pillars bear a canopy of green like a great tent spread over the square of the park. Cool misting lawn sprinklers, their umbral spay--brick walks glisten in the mottled light. Fading blooms of rhodo

Blood Orange, A Novella

12321232 views00 comments00 favs

In the grip of a bad dream, she bolted awake, thinking she had heard the nightsounds of a tomcat crawling around her property. It was some dreaded hour before dawn; she had no idea when. Her small, frail body was stiff, her breasts swollen and sore to

Sharp Was the Blade: chapter from Ari Figue's Cat

14151415 views00 comments00 favs

You do not open the wound all at once. You do not slice or cut or slash. You stroke, as a lover's finger strokes the skin of her beloved. You slide the blade lightly over the surface. You do not think, I am hurting myself. You do not think, pain. You slid

The Polish Worker

10491049 views44 comments11 fav

... and that’s the story of the Polish worker who looks like van Gogh.

Medusa Song

18591859 views1818 comments55 favs

She scrambles the eggs while the baby howls at her knees. To drown out the racket, she hums as she jabs her fork into the yolks. She enjoys the way they spill their yellow color and swirl into the whites. She matches her tune to the schook, schook, schook of the…

Three Teeth

12061206 views11 comment00 favs

Three teeth. You can pick them out if you hit pause just right. Probably not a person in the entire valley who hasn’t seen that video from the Eastern Cheerleading Finals. They even showed the tape on the eleven o’clock news in Scranton, my face ci

Jeremy's Crane

860860 views00 comments00 favs

I saw magic for the first time when I was eight, on the day Jeremy Chendo showed me that paper cranes can fly.

If This Were Baltimore

15151515 views1515 comments88 favs

If This Were Baltimore East A spray of change in the lilies and loose rubber, she pulled close to the wall. She smiled at the trucks, her handful of loot. Hallelujah, he said, converting. West Like 4 miles of cakes, they counted…

Record of a Living Being

13921392 views11 comment11 fav

Kurosawa was silent as we traipsed through the destruction, carefully side-stepping piles of sodden pages and heaps of swollen, broken-backed texts. Workers in coveralls used wide brooms to push water toward a floor-drain at the back of the store.

Water

12251225 views66 comments22 favs

The water rolls gently this evening, barely touching my toes before retreating. The tide has been going out for over an hour and already there are several victims – crustaceans, spider crabs, minnows.

The Book You'll Never Read

10661066 views55 comments11 fav

THE BOOK YOU'LL NEVER READ CONTENTS This Is Not A Test In The Event Of A Nuclear Attack, This Message Will Be Followed By A Message From Your Local Civilian Defense Authority Fuck, The Radio Doesn't Work Trouble Shooting Radios The Top 40…

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

15461546 views1111 comments44 favs

Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

#5

10921092 views55 comments22 favs

and the other guy goes

The Words Fall Into Ash

11911191 views1313 comments33 favs

The two were huddled in a corner of an alley, joined by some others that I’m sure wandered into the darkness when they realized they were far from alone. That alley was the one off Market Street. I used to steal candy from the corner shop when I was nin

Conjecture

998998 views22 comments00 favs

Sunday, May 9, 1773 Sir — The world must at present be perpetual on the primitive state of human nature Conjecture The jealousy and envy boils over a dead weight strangled serpents in the Temple

Gone Shopping

10061006 views00 comments00 favs

She found Matthew toward the back, cradling an urn with a tasteful black and gold pattern. When he saw her approaching, he held it up for inspection. “You think I’d look good in this?” he asked.

What Our Fathers Knew

17201720 views1313 comments88 favs

The clickity-click of poker chips spills out to the six of us waiting for a table. We're old college buddies, drunk since one this afternoon, sporting the ball caps our wives never let us wear. We brag. About our poker wins, how easy it is to read each other, how we can…

Four, in the Morning

996996 views00 comments22 favs

We’d told her that Kasey waitressed. We talked about it a lot, trying to figure something out. I wanted to be honest with her. Kasey said she was too young to understand. I said that was why honesty wouldn’t hurt anything. Kasey said what about later.