Recommended stories

In Dreams

20072007 views2121 comments1616 favs

I always wanted to head on up to New York City and be taught by a decent painter, but as time kept on trucking, it became clear that that was just a big dream that would not shake out and I'd never be a real artist because I was shy of the money I'd need to stay up there in…

Crossties

14901490 views1111 comments1212 favs

Regrets lined behind him like crossties on a railroad track.

~drug abuse prevention panties~

31553155 views77 comments66 favs

She locked herself in the bathroom, turned on the tap and poured lavender Suave shampoo all over them and rinsed them till they no longer bled. She took off all her clothes and tried on a pair, turning in front of the mirror, thrusting her hips, pout

Didn't I always let you have one of my cigarettes?

17301730 views2222 comments1212 favs

I liked the taste in my mouth, mint and cigarettes and fresh and filthy.

Why We Came to Target at 9:58 on a Monday Night

23232323 views1818 comments1313 favs

Donnie remembers just in time. So we run practically every stop sign and red light in town, and get there just before they close.

Cabrito

19751975 views2222 comments1515 favs

Mariposa, the skinny hound, crawls out from under the trailer

Third Time's the Charm

20752075 views3535 comments1515 favs

No jobs except drinking...

Doesn't mean I love you

31263126 views1616 comments1010 favs

I’m practically naked; coral sundress, very damp panties, black with lace insets. I know I still smell like pussy.

Wince

16551655 views2828 comments1616 favs

Lately he's been wanting to write about love...

Car

31293129 views1212 comments1313 favs

My father brought home a turquoise Porsche with red leather upholstery. My sister and I were small, eight and six, and fit tightly in the jumpseats behind my parents.We went for a ride, tooled around Rome, circled the Colosseum, showing off for the people looking. My father…

10 Easy Steps to a Better Intellectual Life

30113011 views1818 comments1111 favs

Let’s face it, there are simply too many things too know these days.

Dumb Luck

24032403 views2121 comments1313 favs

“What sort of truck was it in Texas?” Carlisle says. “Small as truck goes,” Mill says. “Smaller than a full-size pick-up.”

Nothing

39603960 views77 comments66 favs

Nobody goes over there cause that’s where the body was found. A little one. Half in and half out the water, waded up like paper.

Take Your Gun to Work Day

18401840 views2929 comments1515 favs

In a rousing show of support for guns and the owners who love them, the Legislature passed and Governor Greg Abbott gleefully signed a law proclaiming April 15 as Take Your Gun to Work Day in Texas.

Almanac

16231623 views2020 comments1515 favs

I said, “Marcy, Source Almanac is a guide for the Apple.”

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

12621262 views1717 comments1010 favs

It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Chatter

14441444 views2020 comments1616 favs

The night before his mother's teeth began chattering.

The Common Cold

19501950 views3333 comments1313 favs

There was dad sitting at the table, wide awake, reading glasses on nose, pen in hand above a Doppler graph of numbers on paper, one of many now-lost theorems, looking up as his son walked into the room.

The Gulf

22512251 views2020 comments1515 favs

My 99 year old mother...

The Goodbye Meets the Hello at the Station

22052205 views2121 comments99 favs

"You come to nature with all your theories, and she knocks them out flat."--Renoir "Dreaming is free."--Blondie "I can't vouch for my ability to avoid dullness..the odd position in which poets find themselves explains their often-sentimental identification with the…

The Wreck of Me

21442144 views1717 comments1313 favs

“You’re a hard habit to break,” I said. My tongue was flaring. Flirting with nurses was my father’s thing.

Ordering a muse over the phone

22802280 views2525 comments1010 favs

"Well, I'd like to inquire about getting a muse. It says in your ad that you provide muses for people who are creatively challenged by their art form."

October is the month when your dog dies

11971197 views1616 comments1515 favs

.

Forging

15691569 views1818 comments1313 favs

Taken by agents of the United States of America, Felix Six-Killer grows up at the Carlisle Indian School near Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. His hair is cut and oiled. His shirts are starched and creased. For months he is startled to find himself seated for…

Landing

15311531 views1616 comments1616 favs

She’s witnessed her mother’s terror on the day of the hurricane, and she demanded for the first time in her life that her mother do something her mother did not want to do.

Gossip

13431343 views1818 comments1616 favs

Gossip Betty Martini divorces husbands when they least expect it. On a seeming whim, she pays a visit to dear Arnold, who keeps her papers handy in his top desk drawer. She initials here and there, signs with a…

Etude, Prelude, Nocturne, Polonaise

18831883 views2323 comments1515 favs

proving little more/ than the player’s keyboard dexterity.

The Color of Sound

20892089 views1010 comments88 favs

The girl put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in cupped hands and this was for comfort but she appeared symmetrical the way an etheric visitor might and the brightness was just then trying to find a way through an opening in morning dining room…

After Dinner/Ice Melts/A Sage in the Copse

21122112 views3535 comments1414 favs

AFTER DINNER Another cycle gone, wasted. She stares into her bowl of full-fat ice cream (just half a cup a day, every day, for fertility). Beside her sits her husband, building a sundae. When he's done she reaches over, picks the cherry off the top, and hurls it into the…

A Simple Explanation

24442444 views3636 comments1212 favs

You are just another and I am only me. I give you full permission to be everything I don’t want you to be. In fact, I insist.