Recommended stories

Anaphylaxis

16401640 views22 comments33 favs

The reaction had started, the hives and respiratory swelling. Maddy huffed for air, each inhalation rattling her throat louder, more hoarse.

Hip-Hop Lit: New and Noteworthy

11241124 views44 comments33 favs

Her son was doubtless the biggest wanksta that ever went to Andrew Jackson in the whole crumby history of the school.

Turtles Don't Have Hair

17131713 views77 comments33 favs

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

Two poems

11921192 views33 comments22 favs

I cut myself. Often. The bloodslice like thin lips parted/in prayer. life’s color drained to ashen/as the old world spins, pirouettes/like a circus dog on the back/of a galloping horse.

Bright Red Leaf

880880 views44 comments22 favs

Little scoundrel Name of leaf, No one knows He's a thief. The shadows stretch, The birds fly south, And summer's a word Of ash in the mouth When all of a sudden The colors are gone But for a red…

Pictures of Mona

921921 views44 comments22 favs

Jersey's ex-girlfriend calls him on a Saturday in the fall and asks if he'll help her find her cat. She says it ran off on her while she was taking it for a walk in the park. He thinks for a second about asking her why she was taking a cat for a walk in the first…

A Good Sized Puddle Suits the Fish Between My Ears

11131113 views33 comments33 favs

Tell me everything about yourself, if I could care, I can pretend, let me pretend.

ROLLING LIKE THUNDER

13111311 views88 comments22 favs

The ocean smelled like decomposed plant life and clinically despicable vagina, but I still spoke of its power and my fear of it in moonlit clichés and she still listened.

Henry Ground

12141214 views1212 comments11 fav

Henry Ground was a healthy and well adjusted English man who excelled at chess and folk dancing. One day, for no apparent reason, he decided to fill his guinea pig with helium. He carried the animal under the light of the stars into the shed at the bottom of his garden.…

Monsters

10611061 views88 comments22 favs

I have always been frightened of Ferris Wheels

Combinatorics

12641264 views66 comments33 favs

“I'm thinking about math class,” she said. “The solution to three factorial.” “Easy,” Leo said.

Four Days before Thanksgiving, Boston to Colorado

14601460 views55 comments44 favs

The daughter's trip, a travail, cross country; the painkillers were not the finisher mom needed—and the white sheets of the institution were too thin to provide her any comfort as she dreamt of swimming; a backstroke suspended over a waterless pool.Her father…

Getting to Work

12201220 views1010 comments22 favs

And I don't know how long it will be until she comes outside and figures it all out. Figures me out.

Dakar 1989

13171317 views77 comments33 favs

Everyone runs to the plane but me. I get the last seat (middle of 5), crush men’s bags on my way. I’m white & female. They glare.

Her Side of the Story

11991199 views77 comments22 favs

I can't even tell you when it all started to come apart, but I do know that they're just nervous tics, responses to stress. We all go through it.The fact is I wouldn't even be bringing up any of this if it wasn't for the fact of the… incident… Shit, I know I wasn't…

The Tortoise in the Hair

17901790 views33 comments33 favs

Pete told me, honest to God, that the first night he had that tortoise back home with him, he woke up the next morning bald. The damn thing had eaten off all his hair. So then Pete figured he'd strike up a deal with Clarence Magee, the barber.

Valentine

12431243 views44 comments11 fav

"His middle name is Valentine, and when asked about it, he isn't sure why."

Trees on Fields

12881288 views99 comments22 favs

Dear Jackknife Ponderosa, I'm stupid. Let's move on. Let's move past the part where I complain, where I struggle with circumstance, where I display my petty arms, and shoot holes in the air. …

Miracle Bra for my behind

15631563 views1010 comments11 fav

Do you want an ass mi Nina Bonita? I buy you jeans that work like a Miracle Bra for your behind.

Swaying on This Articulation Until We Slow

917917 views33 comments33 favs

In Nebraska, I looked up from the flatness, to her face, then down to the page and saw this: Real people have joy.

Imaginary Photo Album

11721172 views44 comments33 favs

Let me swim into your eyes. Let me show you my world. My album. My Albania. My albumen.

To All the Sisters on My iPod

12101210 views44 comments33 favs

It was a wake-up call. A sign that I needed to stop and ask if I was making wise and sensible life choices. My iPod was full.

The Color of Sleep

11761176 views55 comments22 favs

Have you ever seen a body of words give birth to a paragraph? I won't lie. It's a little gross. But quite moving. First there is the biology of reproduction. A blackbird living in an electric guitar, for instance, and its inexplicable urge to mate with an elephant.…

the custodial cats of the fulcrum of memory + three

773773 views33 comments33 favs

“the calendar of my future was in there!”/ yes: all tomorrows belong to the dead cats,/ their decisions relinquish one day per day.

Reconceiving the Resurrected

828828 views66 comments22 favs

among and begin / bouquets

I Love a Man Who Whistles

794794 views33 comments33 favs

“Hey! You can’t be whistling on Greyhound,” the bus driver said, looking up in the rearview mirror.

Time

13041304 views22 comments11 fav

time. Night after night he's up, restless. What if she knew his plans? If only he'd bypass his miscalculations and slip through

My Brief Career as Sloganeer for HAP

783783 views55 comments33 favs

I needed a job. They needed a writer without humanistic moral qualms to create slogans for the Human Annihilation Project

Word Burglar

11981198 views55 comments33 favs

Oh my god - A plagiarizing pony - I know someone must have said that before

A Love Letter To The Glasgow Transport System

10351035 views44 comments33 favs

Skulk like a lovespun spider in a record store corner on the orange formica subway car