Recommended stories

The Dialogue

10181018 views44 comments22 favs

"Aren't you free to say whatever you please?"

Untouched By Me, Alas!

986986 views44 comments22 favs

Another run-in with the police happened one night in Elmhurst. I was seeing this girl I'd met in my Shakespeare night class at Elmhurst College. She and I and Andy and a friend of hers, I think, were parked in front of her house, drinking a six pack of beer when her…

a different kind of poetry slam

10531053 views66 comments11 fav

removing oneself sometimes occurs only on the page

Edith Head's Heady Day

945945 views33 comments22 favs

Rain dressed for winter, a win, she thought

The Phantom

13741374 views44 comments11 fav

Approaching the kitchen from the foyer the reverb lessened until heel and floor where flint on flint. No spark was made.

Tissue

11811181 views55 comments11 fav

A tissue, she was saying - hand me a tissue. Her seat belt was locked and she was rocking back and forth in it cinching wrinkles into her favorite blue silk blouse. I can't remember her wearing anything else. Her hands were gesturing - on and on- an endless loop…

Youngstown

10011001 views22 comments22 favs

Last night I met a man from the same littleshithole townthat you are fromand I kissed him in the mouth to find out if he tasted like coallike you do.While he slept, I tried to pinpoint on a map I drew on his back exactly how far apart you might have been:how many years…

the curtained claws of shade

675675 views33 comments22 favs

with so many thick curtains hung out to shroud/ so many unlit eyes, Night you’d think could spare/ a small few for our diversion . . .

Let it Rage Until

153153 views22 comments22 favs

Let it rage. I shall not suppress you. Let your rage speak to you of the sorrow it hides, until your sadness swallows you whole.

Nativity in Tahiti: Paul Gauguin

14381438 views55 comments22 favs

The young girl has given up, and lies sprawled out upon the yellow cover on the bed, with her blue sarong wrapped loosely around her body. One arm lay back up above her head, where it was thrown during the exertion of birth. Her yellow halo surr

Commitment

13001300 views33 comments22 favs

I have committed to nothing. Therefore I have committed to something. The first sentence is now moot, and this story will eat itself.

Exhibit B

10411041 views55 comments22 favs

My sweet granny was like Exhibit A that I was adopted. I mean, how can anyone be sure?

Stones

11791179 views55 comments22 favs

The manicured lawn rolls down either side of the knoll, punctuated with flat granite plaques, the occasional bouquet of cut flowers, a smattering of faded eight-inch American flags.

Heart Apart

961961 views22 comments22 favs

Yes, I had pulled my own heart apart Yes, I had slipped up on time itself In its own backyard behind my memories And scared the crap out of it By not yelling, just sniffing at its neck Longingly, tearing it apart with my teeth Wishing I had

Who Do You Want To Live With?

11601160 views33 comments22 favs

“Guys, who would you rather live with.... Mom... or Dad.” His younger siblings giggled in shock, not that they hadn’t thought about it... apparently. "You know I'm right here..." I joked, waving at them. “I’d rather live with mom.” the question-a

Sparrow

805805 views22 comments22 favs

I don't care what my reincarnated self thinks about today. I'm already aware that everything stinks in the end. Well. It's supposed to. But all things must seek travel while they can. Dance while they can. Dream while they can. Laugh while they can.…

A Story About You

12951295 views44 comments22 favs

“I wrote a story about you today.”

Klout

11731173 views33 comments22 favs

while you peed on that little old lady's begonias

Killing Hope

12811281 views33 comments22 favs

Hope was beauty before I even knew what beauty was with her golden pigtails, brilliant blue eyes and an infectious smile — even after Jamie Delano flung his Frisbee, knocking out Hope’s two front teeth.

Call Me

12461246 views22 comments22 favs

I'm living where I've always lived, in Georgia.

How To Write Funny

14071407 views22 comments22 favs

I've never really been impressed with authors that write long teary-eyed novels about people dying of terrible diseases or uplifting stories about the armless boy who made the wrestling team.

New Story In PANK

856856 views55 comments11 fav

The gecko instinctively knew that if he moved, he was dead.

The Birds

13351335 views55 comments22 favs

When I left my wife, I got the birds. Two parakeets, blue and yellow, male and female. They were loud, messy and, because my ex rarely cleaned their cage, smelly. So I got them. At first, I called him Rod and her Tippy. Rod Taylor and Tippy Hedren? The Bi

Raw Sugar

13851385 views44 comments22 favs

Take shelter from the rain inside the Museum of Sex.

Ten lines inspired by a lecherous man ...

718718 views11 comment11 fav

A hymn for her when his head cocks shameless.

Chrysanthemums

9595 views33 comments22 favs

.

On a Son Turning Twenty-One

947947 views55 comments22 favs

The rest is Scots, people for whom a taste is enough and a lyric’s as rare as a dragon or a poet named MacDuff.

Sleeplessness

951951 views33 comments22 favs

The retina was burning, the liquid had dried up, and the veins bursting. My eyes bled. But I kept them open. The sound was like nails on glass, screeching endlessly. Coming close to me louder, harder, faster.

Keep the Change

13581358 views22 comments22 favs

Jacob could tell it was a man he had just walked past, a broken man with an olive green Vietnam era military jacket, a man who had probably served his country as honorably as anyone chosen at lottery and forced to kill for a subsistence wage…

Hoping For Bones

11391139 views33 comments22 favs

In the backyard with Joey, I make the mistake of answering him honestly when he asks what the gray brick in the dirt is for. “My parakeet is buried there,” I say. And he asks, “can we dig it up?”Joey's grandma lives down the street; he comes over…