Recommended stories

My Totally Awesome Funeral

24852485 views77 comments33 favs

Construct my eulogy with dialogue snippets culled from old Brat Pack movies and deliver them with a straight face.

Warm Day, Virus City

688688 views44 comments33 favs

From inside the baking hot car we watched our father, nervous in his face mask and gloves, step through the wooden gate into grandma's front garden. She was waiting for him, thin and lonely behind the frilled lace curtain. She held the iPad in her left hand, and she…

End of the Cloud

11911191 views55 comments33 favs

Somewhere between the bleating of sheep And the laying of eggs Comes the licking of frosting And the eating of the cake We’re not young enough To know everything anymore And you may think there’s no rush But I know this There’s a limit t

Easy to Show

16401640 views66 comments33 favs

“3.9 million dollars,” she whispered to the window.

The Photo of the Bulletproof Man

15821582 views55 comments33 favs

He was corporate then, young, his wife gorgeous, the collar flipped up on his twill overcoat, a lit cigarette in one hand, the other around his wife’s waist. They stood outside. It looked chilly. She wore a hat. He looked bulletproof.

The Things That Danny Said

19181918 views66 comments33 favs

Danny said that you like him now. He smiled like it was the best news that he could give me, but his eyes dared me. …

Read My Lips, or Simply Refer to the Subtitles

12441244 views55 comments33 favs

A friend has been shopping an opera around without success. It's about Arthur Inman, a hypochondriac who hired people to talk to and, in some cases, have sex with him.

Edward Ogle the Ninth

11871187 views44 comments33 favs

Vanilla bean trampoline

The Human Bible

955955 views55 comments44 favs

Fat, religious, full of himself,

Alfalfa

20612061 views99 comments33 favs

The year I lick so much windowpane off stamps I have to use Elmer's glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the "wine" parties. "Wine" is what we put down

Application for Position as Failure

14191419 views99 comments22 favs

Dear Sir/ Madam I wish to apply for the position you advertised in the Daily Sun. Although my expertise is in self-obliteration and self-worth (or lack of), and my work mainly in disappointment, I do have much experience in failure, which this letter will…

Milky Way of Impossibility

11721172 views66 comments33 favs

Can we meet in the desert, I will stand with a cactus flower clenched between my teeth and balance en pointe. I will tame snakes and find your serpent tongue with my eyes closed. I will usher in the clouds, when it grows hot, and, should you becom

~with every breath~

13371337 views11 comment22 favs

she goes jogging with the feet of an angel the sound of crunching leaves like wrapping paper torn open to reveal an expensive doll and the light in her mother's eyes.

~the brilliant machine~

16761676 views44 comments22 favs

when the sun goes down alone vice is forgotten in the night wind your lover's voice on the phone held fast in the balance of gravity and momentum overcoming inanimate objects and the unknown

The Show Must Go On

14301430 views55 comments44 favs

I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation

Song Against Unwarranted Cheer

12141214 views77 comments22 favs

If I should stumble into cheerfulness/ remind me of all the business models

Red and Lavendar Silk

13231323 views55 comments44 favs

Swatches of Chinese silk in vivid red and lavender fly through the air. My granddaughter in her mid-thirties reaches for the cloth. I see in her mirror a shape forming; a slim, gray haired woman with a spring in her step. I pause to admire my reflection and pass over the…

After all

11621162 views55 comments33 favs

The questions piled up so high I thought I'd neverget through the door.The ease of alcohol, the incline of submission. Guttural sounds and spittle.Wipe down the morning afterwith a shower.Redress in last night's clothes.There's coffee if you want it.Sincerity too -no,…

The Prettiest Lie

18831883 views66 comments33 favs

Your life is going to change—how many times was that prediction offered in one form or another during my wife’s pregnancy? Mothers often said it with a bliss-touched smile; fathers with a smirk that was both sardonic and conspiratorial, and a distinct

Ranger

12651265 views44 comments44 favs

“What. Is. That?” Sid asked, staring at the shaggy ball of fur sitting in the living room. Its tongue hung out of its mouth and its tail beat against the carpet.“This is Ranger,” his mom said. “I don't know what breed he is, but he's a sweetie…

Crazy Later

14471447 views66 comments22 favs

A year ago, my neighbor was a sexy graduate student in fashion design, sounds perhaps shabby, yet if it is, then we in the Middle West are all shabby. That girl's father graduated from high school with Bob Dylan in Hibbing, not entitling her to a child.

There’s No Peace In The World

925925 views33 comments33 favs

Then there was the time I splurged, hoping a higher-priced phone might keep me from slamming it against the wall.

Don't Touch

19911991 views77 comments22 favs

Frank must have said "don't touch" about a million times over the course of the day

"Your face seems faint against the violet glades..."

12361236 views55 comments33 favs

Your face seems faint against the violet glades; The long winds echo once, then fail to start. Some wounding scent has stripped my hopes apart That dwelled to scent you. From the cavalcades The leaves make, bare at times since eve's sting fades To…

Child's Play Brings Back Memories of Busted Heads for Greying Protestor

18061806 views88 comments33 favs

"My boy Jake fell in with a bad crowd when he went to college," Coffelt says, shaking his head. "A bunch of accounting majors."

I Am the Poetic Kiss of Death

14561456 views66 comments33 favs

My poems have appeared in four different publications; three have died shortly after they ran my stuff. Coincidence, or something more sinister?

Need and Desire

14601460 views66 comments33 favs

“I mean it, Hanna. I don't want you to.” But his leg felt carved away where her head had lain. One stupid thing jostling another for attention. He was afraid that if she touched him again, he'd have her on the ground.

The Man Inside

10531053 views44 comments44 favs

...her facial twitches, gasps and whines, her moments of trapped silence.

Berthier Door

17851785 views44 comments33 favs

On Day 1122 at 4:14 AM the door which has remained since installation firmly glued to the masonry behind opens and a man emerges blinking shielding his eyes against fine stinging snow.

Her Dream of Ending

16241624 views11 comment11 fav

I. The girl within the sleeping woman dreams her dream of ending. To her comes the cowgirl with no kids: she's riding high atop her turquoise horse, steady by its braided mane. Silver pistols holstered. The girl in the woman in the dream she's dreaming…