Recommended stories

Beehive

13231323 views55 comments55 favs

Like when she said the word 'but', it came out ‘bet’.

Breaking Point

13891389 views66 comments55 favs

I can do the hot coals, no problem. Or, your love, eyes closed. Or your sneer, spank, suffering, resentment, rejection.

Beyond the Voice

19401940 views88 comments55 favs

We might as well be honest: we’re talking about the two of us here. No one, not even the cameraman, had any idea even after all these years. For more than a decade we’d been bringing the six o’clock news into a medium-almost-major market region.

A Little Wine (to put you in the idle reverie)

911911 views44 comments44 favs

Amused yet? It doesn't matter and that doesn't meananything. But eternity in hell is just another knifethey use to keep you looking in the wrong direction. We can have fun. Please don't let them break your heart like that. They do their jobs because they no…

Waiting, Waiting

12471247 views55 comments55 favs

The fear you represent is a real drag. That's all there is to say. But like every other house on the block I have spiders in the basement who are waiting to be brought up into the golden light. These creatures only want to be good at being alive. Instead they are given…

The Joint is Out of Time: A Journal of the Plague Year, Day 108

10351035 views99 comments44 favs

History in the unmaking.

Sands In Time by Julie Noble

24992499 views1010 comments55 favs

Sands In Time by Julie Noble As surreptitious as the crab creeping sideways under your patient observation, the sun has inched its way round the sky, echoing exactly the rugged curve of the Bay, and is now preparing itself for the evening slide. In its rich,…

Point of Grace

15551555 views66 comments55 favs

Say the world is a smudged charcoal drawing. Slit from its frame, smuggled out of the Vatican. Don't say it couldn't happen. Who would know.

Hope's Amanuensis

14521452 views66 comments55 favs

I was low on carburetor / oxygen and my fraud protection / had just expired.

Spades

18691869 views1212 comments44 favs

all / the secret letters/ ever dreamed up

Gentle

17151715 views88 comments44 favs

Your voice so soft / I wish it was touch.

On West 4th Street

17831783 views1010 comments44 favs

Across from the Hell Hole the Cage on Sixth pulses, sweats, swooshes, hot concussion as players play for keeps.

Thanksgiving

11371137 views88 comments44 favs

Didn't usually go to the parade because it was long and cold But only a few blocks from the apartment Maybe if the sun had warmed all up some

Older Now

16081608 views55 comments55 favs

You will never know how much it hurts When someone else touches your face. But I also know how much you count on others To pull the slivers out of your heart.

Sun Striking

17601760 views1313 comments44 favs

Sun strikingGolden snow glistens Across empty fieldsLong winter shadowsTrees like fingers The morning in their grasp

Man On A Balcony In His Bathrobe

25862586 views66 comments11 fav

Watering his pansies in their pots with his ridiculous watering can. Sticking his finger in the soil to test the dampness. Obviously nothing on beneath the silk robe. It’s almost fallen loose a dozen times Balding. Maybe in his late forties. S

Ghost

24942494 views55 comments55 favs

You want to be there, but not noticed. Alive, but not too alive. Because that's how you feel every day. Like an apology with legs.

Fear

13001300 views99 comments44 favs

Fear I’ll be stuck here without a ladder

Twelve Pens

13931393 views55 comments55 favs

Their last story

Lovebugs

14821482 views55 comments55 favs

Black bugs are falling, fluttering down like big, black snow flakes. Two bugs, almost always, sometimes only one.

Assiduity Five

14921492 views1414 comments44 favs

. . . my situation.

Be Afraid

13481348 views77 comments55 favs

Everything conspires to kill you:

The After

11061106 views55 comments44 favs

I watched her look at mewithout any eyes.She turned her head as wesat on the edge of the bed.Instead of eyesthere were hollow indentations of soft tissue,bulbs, and closed,tissue sown, pinched togetherwith pulls and zigzagslike crosshatching, where…

Me. You. Love.

20462046 views66 comments55 favs

In my own case, before Ellen, of course there was someone else. She—well, she was someone who I felt as if I’d always known and always would. And I think she felt the same about me.

Emoji Problems

22112211 views66 comments55 favs

Our problems started with a few back and forth texts of emojis late one night. The next evening, a Friday, typically my poker night with the guys, my girlfriend came to the door.“You brought over pizza, how nice,” I said. “And, oh, gosh, look at that, a…

Couplets Regarding an Impasse

15011501 views55 comments55 favs

Life is easier for the handsome. / They are more pleasant to deal with.

A Manual for Readers

21212121 views55 comments55 favs

The story will starve. It will crawl up your throat to get the cracker.

Me and Frisco on the Road

11881188 views77 comments55 favs

I don't think I minded so much watching the trucks hit him, one breaking his spine with a decisive snap, and the other finishing the job by splitting his skull. I don't think I minded watching as much as I did watching those two boys poking around at his

Riding Off into the Sunset

35483548 views1010 comments22 favs

There's only one road out of here. It goes straight north for a while, then starts veering off toward the west. You and Horace Greeley can get all dreamy-eyed if you want, but I know which side of the river the Egyptians buried their dead on.

Kindness

14501450 views55 comments44 favs

Two days ago, a friend of mine and I met at my house. She was a nurse, and could only visit my house very late at night when her shift ended. We don’t meet often because she is very busy saving lives and generally being a more useful human being in societ