Recommended stories

Sweet Jane

12181218 views66 comments33 favs

I feel so glamorous when I talk to Andy on the phone

Grandma

17991799 views22 comments11 fav

It was a subtle change. Jeffrey's grandmother was never graceful. Her figure was like a garbage bag filled with rounded masses of leaves and the unexpected angle of the odd stick, the entire shambling affair draped in soiled and yellowed hand-knit clothing…

Creative Handwriting

13521352 views55 comments44 favs

I found the hand eight months ago, after I planned to grow a meadow of tiny yellow blossoms in my yard.

Wonder Boy Wonder

932932 views55 comments33 favs

He knew it was messed up and wrong, but sometimes she was the last thing he’d see before the dam burst. It made him feel both the best and the worst.

Childproof Your Chewing Gum, Will You?

906906 views33 comments33 favs

Have you ever heard a bird sneeze? Okay, okay, I was sitting on this branch, and you know how everybody loves to hate poetry, right? So, I ran into some hippies, who had named their daughter Echinacea, and you could instantly read her future, and

Hindsight

11271127 views44 comments33 favs

You were a mine field

coffee

10161016 views66 comments22 favs

OldShe would amble into this coffee shopevery dayOrdered her cup of coffeeWhen she finished it, she would wave thecontainer in the air shouting "waitress, waitress,another one please."As the waitress came to her for her refill, she would put her hand in her tattered bag and…

In The Wake

11381138 views55 comments33 favs

Any form of exertion would defile what we are trying to do

My dark job history

12841284 views55 comments33 favs

Sometime in the late 60s when I was thirteen I had this paper route for the San Mateo Times.

i went to raves & wrote songs

13961396 views66 comments33 favs

A short poem.

The Judge's Wife Part 2

11081108 views55 comments33 favs

"Do you kiss all of your models?"

The Scripture of the Mountain

11981198 views44 comments33 favs

Abstractions excite me. I can't say why. There are treasures in the mountains. Extremities and peaks. Romantic cures and the curious juice of blackberries. The truth and authority of rock. It feels impersonal, and tilts into eccentric configurations. What is purpose?…

Refugees

11321132 views55 comments33 favs

Somebody left CNN on all night long until the news cycle flipped, crashed and burned in its own ruins

Victor Krowchuck Gets Dressed

13871387 views44 comments33 favs

He puts on a choir of prepositions, 142 adjectives, 317 ramifications of cotton... and 177 semicolons engorged with cabbage.

Swimming

18321832 views44 comments33 favs

I held on to the edge

Requiem for a Bodyguard

12301230 views44 comments44 favs

People in bad health who want to kill themselves are no different than ancient Romans who ran on their swords. They only want to save themselves a bit of embarrassment.

Inheritance

12631263 views44 comments44 favs

My father died. I took his clothes.

Noises

13811381 views55 comments33 favs

It was midnight. I was outside the cottage, digging another row of star-shaped holes for the shrubbery.

that's what sea said

11111111 views66 comments33 favs

i thirst always for that poetic mouthful

Wild Dreams of Reality, Chapter 1

23492349 views33 comments11 fav

I became a fool for Adrienne Parker the first moment I set eyes on her. Whenever Parker walked into Oliveira's Cafe my breath would stop. I'd try turning away, then find my gaze locked on her face. Maybe it was her bare arms that I found so appealing

Somnambulist

13961396 views55 comments33 favs

Although still uncertain of whether she was a she fish or a he fish (she definitely hated being an it fish), the fish liked what she saw of Nags Head. Finally, a world that gave her a choice. And felt no need to verify whether she was a real she fish, or just a he fish…

Friendship Pins

17741774 views77 comments22 favs

There were a lot of advantages to having shoelaces.

conversations with the psychic

11701170 views55 comments33 favs

She told me in all my past lives I’ve always been a woman, and I was stuck in this relationship and you weren’t coming back, so I should just move on and get over it. I was a little sad, but yeah, I knew I was going to go back to her one more time, just

House

12781278 views77 comments33 favs

I sat in the dark, mashing damp sand like clumps of brown sugar into my palm while the heavy Gulf air blew my hair into ropes. Sometimes I worried that I was unable to need people, but, as much as the thought upset me, I couldn't make myself truly want t

The Nature of Things

993993 views44 comments33 favs

She couldn't see what was actually there—the landscaping. All she could see were dollar signs, thousands of them suspended in mid-air, floating over each new plant, each well-placed sprinkler head, every curve of terraced orderliness on the hillside. She…

The Dream to Build a City

721721 views55 comments33 favs

I tried to drain the ocean But only got a waterfall I tried to drain the sky But only got a thunderstorm I got lightning I got rain I had to build a city By blowing on the palm of my hand The sands rose up The dust blew away And all

Fallen Women 1010

17641764 views77 comments33 favs

Like all professors, I'm required to maintain office hours to help my students so I'm at my desk every fourth Tuesday of months without an "r" in them from 10:30 to 11:00 p.m.

One Man Caught in a Multitude of Self

250250 views55 comments33 favs

The idea that anything is possible only in the moment that it isn't

She Frog

12371237 views33 comments44 favs

She had a face like a frog: wide mouth, prominent eyes – and when she touched him, her fingers felt clammy on his skin.

PIGEONS

13141314 views66 comments33 favs

Ellen decided to soft-pedal the one month to live thing. Really, there was barely time for the patient to read Ellen's brochure.