Recommended stories

From Day One

10171017 views55 comments11 fav

On the first night I met you, you fell in love with the waitress. She had a loud voice and a strong Irish accent. She wore an oversized t-shirt to minimize her large breasts, and baggy jeans. No makeup; crooked teeth. But you…

Parallelogical Circuit

16361636 views44 comments22 favs

{A} So I think maybe I am a robot. If I was a robot, I would do lewd things, metallic (cold, hard, shiny, heavy, malleable, loud, acrid, industrial, immovable, unstoppable) things. I would do the things I do in my dark powerless dreams. People would understand and…

The Tall Guys Club

24322432 views44 comments22 favs

Some of the guys wear earplugs. They wear ‘em because they don’t wanna hear it. Oscar Livitt fucking. Nobody looks.

Filtering Grace

11741174 views22 comments22 favs

...She was my first, my only, she broke me in then brought me down. Alone now, I cycle through hundreds of variations of her image like a flip book narrating some abstract story. That’s all she is now to me, an incoherent melange of tints, saturations, an

from MLKNG SCKLS

16001600 views22 comments22 favs

94% Battery Power Remaining Last night I dreamt about a mutt whose tail never learned how to wag, and under a sun that gagged us with heat, the mutt sat stoned with its mouth belching cones of pot smoke. Sometimes the smoke shone orange – sometim

The Cracked Sidewalk of Kentucky

14921492 views44 comments22 favs

One summer night, as I walked alone down the cracked sidewalk of Kentucky underneath a canopy of maples where the moonlight fell through branches and lit my path with uneven lines I wondered: where does the residue of lust and desire go when everything you want to…

Excerpt from House in the Attic

16431643 views22 comments22 favs

We stopped at the Western Summit of the Mohawk Trail. Below Richland lay in the valley. I could see all the way to New York State and well into Vermont. From memory, I picked out the Hoosac River running south under the railroad

The Boundary Line

24152415 views22 comments22 favs

These things were indeed the wealth of our respective nations.

Six Down

14801480 views22 comments22 favs

“You own your own burial plot, but you don't own your home,” he'd said, and I couldn't help but agree.

Kurosawa's Rain

17191719 views22 comments22 favs

The rain fell from the roof. It fell from my voice and and my eyes. Toshiro's Kukichiro stomped gutshot through the mud with his katana. Young and beautiful, Mifumi died there on the screen though he doesn't really die for fifty or more years, they think from something…

Overboard

20052005 views33 comments22 favs

Six months ago, Gary hired a goateed designer to "defoliate" the office, trucking out all the ficus trees and spanish moss to make room for curved sheets of fiberglass and, as he called it, "negative space." Now, her voice echoes off the concrete floors.

After He Stays

14171417 views66 comments11 fav

When the sex that is new and promising in its awkward moments is over, you turn to him. You expect that he’s figuring out a way to leave; the parts of you that know wait for him to stand up and put his clothes back on, quicker and with more eagerness than

Maybe I Was Better At Shaving My Legs Than I Was At Spreading My Wings

925925 views66 comments22 favs

That new rain smell in your backyard, specifically I remember that, with you. And lying in the grass in a park with you on the 4th of July, maybe in Lombard, watching the blue/grey smoke of the fireworks drifting overhead after they went off, and the sm

Singularities And the Circle Of Convergence

14321432 views55 comments11 fav

There was a knock at the front door of Apartment Number 9. Ace Quana tried to beat his wiener dog, Little Ace to the door, but he could not. For while Little Ace had stubby legs like wet…

Following Questions

18071807 views44 comments11 fav

4. If the property line is a symbol, what about the neighbor girl's window, the flickering candle in her room, her black cotton panties?

11 Bang-Bang

17021702 views33 comments22 favs

The smell of candy and burn... /A patriotic prose poem for the fourth of July.

THE MOON, THE SUN, AND RYAN W. BRADLEY (not quite a fortune-telling)

17841784 views33 comments11 fav

“That’s just Ryan W. Bradley—son of a bitch knows better by now.”

The Island

767767 views33 comments22 favs

There is an island behind the house in which I grew up. It is a network of bicycle paths and booby traps. The past is snared there.

Tuning Pegs

17361736 views22 comments22 favs

Her face had that strange preserved quality Maybelle saw in many aging Boomer women — like an old toy never removed from its packaging.

Darkness

13491349 views33 comments11 fav

DARKNESS …

glass

11901190 views22 comments22 favs

She laughs and licks it.

Infinite Penis

17391739 views44 comments22 favs

He finds a beach ball and recreates humanity upon it. Kicking it down the shore he wonders how the little people must feel about each other. To place them on such a tiny globe almost seems unfair.

What We Had To Do

21922192 views33 comments22 favs

The dismantled moon was not cold in our hands, but warm, smooth beneath its shell as baby flesh. The musk of its damp, stringy innards filled us with sorrow.

The Mouth Is A Swell Place To Invent Things

12201220 views33 comments22 favs

Yesterday I saw Marco Polo getting a tattoo on East Olive. He was practicing Mandarin Chinese with the tattoo artist who was also Chinese. He got a yin yang symbol on his bicep. He looked to the east and saw the hills lift themselves into sky. He grimaced

Endless

13571357 views11 comment11 fav

My grief is made up of Demons fighting to Claw their way first Out of my eyes

Dapplegrey (Where He Lived)

12311231 views33 comments22 favs

A short time ago, a man who lived near me got angry. He woke up one morning and torched his house, with his wife and stepdaughter still inside. He drove up I-35 to the Georgetown airport, got his plane, and flew it into the Echelon Building in Austin.

Strawberries

15131513 views44 comments11 fav

The strawberries remind me of you,Fat and fleshy,Pimple-dimpled.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flash Before Your Eyes

12991299 views66 comments11 fav

It was the dead of winter. I took my father's shotgun from his closet. He kept it wrapped up in one of those khaki-colored gun tote bags that had a zipper running the whole length of the gun. It was a 16-gauge, single action shotgun. Anyone could tell wha

Story Story

12821282 views44 comments11 fav

It was one of those sweltering afternoons that San Diego endures only several times a summer. I'm riding on El Cajon Boulevard, with my friend John in his old Chevy pickup. John is a lifelong San Diego resident and fanatical Charger backer. He's talking up some…

Looking for Eight

14961496 views22 comments22 favs

She knew there were a few rodeos in south Texas scheduled in the next two weeks. Mostly small-time stuff, but riders who hadn't had much luck might be inclined to improve their scores for the pro circuit. She guessed Lorenzo wasn't having much luck.