Recommended stories

Hangover

15271527 views22 comments22 favs

“You wouldn't believe it.” Peter leaned in to whisper. “Don’t let the Kodak moment with the wife and kids fool you. That guy is totally gay.”

Cross Country

10271027 views33 comments22 favs

The train seemed unusually empty this morning. Not that I minded, the night before the train had picked up three travelers which brought the car’s capacity to about half. Two men and a woman. Luckily, I wasn’t burdened with any as a seating companion. Mak

bramble

663663 views22 comments22 favs

i don't know

continuously uncomfortable

10231023 views33 comments22 favs

I could feel myself slipping back into my old ways again and it always hurt like hell.

Rue Saint Maur, 3:14am

997997 views66 comments11 fav

The city had a way of going silent. Not a nervous silence, but a quiet silence. The sky was dark, yet everything was colored in a yellow hue cast by the arched streetlights. Buildings, parked vehicles, walls, pavement. Cars and scooters and ambulances and police cars…

Live a Little Again, With Me

766766 views22 comments22 favs

Soon you too will lie down with the sleep of rain, grown old by having lived through your youth, that is all. Lying from the side of your mouth so often that you take up lying on your side, to try getting an eyeful of the often slandered truth rig

Deus Ex Mama

677677 views11 comment11 fav

Charlie is hollering about Rex again. Every dinosaur right now is Rex. Also Rex: every animal with thick-looking skin--elephants, crocodiles. (Yesterday, he pointed to an ant and told me, "Buggy Rex.")

Caitlin in the Y2K Museum

13271327 views22 comments11 fav

Two months after Peter moved out, it opened on the eastern-leaning boulevard, a stone's throw from the water. Caitlin heard about it from a friend at a bar three weeks after that, found that the concept wouldn't quietly settle in her mind, and made plans

Two Weeks After the Shadow

11831183 views55 comments11 fav

Two weeks after the shadow shows up in Stephen's x-ray, you decide to do something about the bucket in the garden. You start by wedging it underneath the faucet in the back yard so tightly that it pushes against the pipe with the groan of grinding metal. Now the hose is…

Real Heart

11831183 views44 comments11 fav

A heart which is alive despite everything in the world that wants to deaden it.

Alex Kraft and the Otherworld: Prologue through Chapter 27

441441 views55 comments11 fav

Prologue Late at night, an old man named Drevin Philpott stands on the deck of a cruise ship, looking out at the sea. The man is hunched and very small. His arms and legs are thin and he's got a bowling ball for a gut. He's standing on a chair so he can…

Of Dreams that Dance and Die, Before the Drums

11031103 views22 comments11 fav

At eight o' clock: as, drawn by many bells, The patchwork congregation lopes and stalks, To churches far from serenade of shells To storms, we leave behind the windblown walks, And sails of youth, to glide through liquid hells, A temporal…

Fernando

926926 views22 comments22 favs

“It's not him,” Kelly says. “I think it might be,” says her Mom. The three of us are sitting on the long sofa facing the wall which is one …

Checking Out

932932 views66 comments11 fav

Minnie looked at her co-worker's nametag. "Destiny," she said to her. That's a pretty name. It suits you. You're an attractive young lady. Is your momma pretty?" "Not like I am," Destiny said as she smoothed her shiny black hair. "I'm honest about it 'ca

Marion, Texas

10581058 views22 comments22 favs

Marion had decided to stop whenever she came upon Amarillo. It was close to two a.m. when she pulled into the motel parking lot. Momma, read the nametag on the woman at reception. Her face was illuminated by a TV. Her hair curlers were illuminated by the lone desk lamp…

Invasive Species

12441244 views44 comments00 favs

Except, something about Margaret was a little off. She would stop typing suddenly and look up at the plant, studying it, almost as if daring it to cross her. Then, she would go back to her computer and start pounding away again.

Kiss & make up

14941494 views33 comments22 favs

“You wanna fight.” And I say yes. And he says – “First, we gotta make out.”

Now Fox News is saying

500500 views22 comments11 fav

We were in love with the same disease.

Goodbye

951951 views22 comments22 favs

In the end, he knew he wasn’t going home.

Her Stars

737737 views55 comments22 favs

She wondered why people would spend hard-earned money on a television when they could look up at the sky for free and trace the images that had inspired poets.

Superheroes

886886 views55 comments11 fav

I change things without notice for himto make sure he's ready for the corporate world. It's no longer our goal to watch cartoonswe must now focus on breakfastthenaction figures. "But Daddy," he says. "I likecartoons." "I know it hurts," I say."But…

Cassie Fly

11061106 views33 comments22 favs

...the relatives didn't seem nearly as fucked up as she thought they would be considering...

Why I Don’t Drink

10021002 views22 comments22 favs

He had that kind of connection / with his cocktails, intimate / sort of like a boy and his dog. // Cocktails have in any case / saved him from the bottom / of many dark wells. /

An Old Sweet Song

14921492 views33 comments22 favs

Rob thought he might even make it. He'd stopped off south of Seattle, in Kent, and filled up the tank and went back in the can and topped off again. He got back on the road, to all appearances blase, blase. The montages were muted, at least for…

Tiger Lily

11551155 views55 comments11 fav

4th of July weekend, Woodland canyon, summer heat like the Garden of Eden, lush, green, secluded. She lay by the creek in a lounge chair under dappled shade from the sycamore trees, listening to the frogs jump and the birds sing, admiring the orange tiger lilies that…

Path

986986 views55 comments11 fav

a man sees salamander bands / a-cracklin on the scree

Looking for Comments

10261026 views33 comments22 favs

So do you read my writing?I text youI need to know whatyou like betterThe bloodor the gutsThat's what it is.You see Iput it out therefor you.That's not what it saysbut I know the truth.Am I smart enoughgood enoughdo you think it's crapbecause anyone can like it…

Zorks

12291229 views44 comments22 favs

The way things are looking, we haven't got long on this earth. The whole human race is in trouble. And forget global warming, the ground wars all over, the death of the oceans, Pat Robertson, that shit. Those are annoyances,…

A mere second is enough...

926926 views22 comments22 favs

This was why the man on the bicycle was still in time to turn his head to her because he thought it was his sister who lived in California, because she wore the same jacket and in his inattentiveness almost ran over another cyclist.

13 poets in Hell

931931 views11 comment11 fav

1Paradise Lost is cast into the lake of fire. Satan tells John Milton to rewrite it in 140 characters or fewer.2Filippo Marinetti languishes in a dismal rural idyll. His hand, possessed, scrawls euphonic odes to the moon with a quill.3Henri Michaux floats through the…