Recommended stories

Once There Was a Way to Get Back Home

24502450 views55 comments11 fav

I should have covered myself with leaves. I should have wandered farther from the path.

Oblivious

14951495 views33 comments11 fav

It was cloudy, the way he liked it -- no baking in the sun. People passed occasionally. He sniffed at the joggers, “Health Nuts,” he dubbed them. He hadn’t exercised since his last high school gym class.

Thirteen Random Things I Learned About Jon Stewart From "Angry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart."

14101410 views33 comments11 fav

Jon Stewart factoids!

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

13391339 views55 comments11 fav

It starts with a letter, down the back of the couch, ending, ‘love, always.' I read only the kisses aimed at me - a firing line running off the page. How long has that letter hidden there? It secreted itself in a corner of the house…

What Hands Can Do

24842484 views11 comment22 favs

I can't remember the last dog I spayed. It's possible that one of the techs gave her a dose of preansethetic in her cage before I came in, so that when I met her, she was already a little…

Animals, Animals, Animals

17391739 views11 comment22 favs

  Crea grew up above a pet store and now she dreams of cats. There are too many of them to name, a slinking mess of calico, tabby, tortoise-shell, black and white. There are more each night. They whisper to her, words made of hissing mewls. During the…

Dungeon

790790 views33 comments22 favs

why were ghosts in wry mirrors feeding on hope?

My wife denies being my older self.

15011501 views44 comments33 favs

What are you, my judge?

Alcoholism Does Not Come Naturally to All Alocoholics

12971297 views44 comments11 fav

Couldn't get that first beer past his nose. Fared no better with wine, gagging on red and white. Then someone fixed him screwdriver.

Kinky Eggs

12551255 views88 comments00 favs

She plucks two eggs from the carton, weighs and measures them with the cup of her palm, the curve of her fingers.

Europa Sonnets - 5-8

968968 views44 comments11 fav

5. To hate one's race is always overrated;We built fair cities where there were no huts.The Frankfurt School should all have been castrated,And strung up by a noose made of their guts.Marcuse, you have caused the death of Europe,With Gramsci, Adorno, Freud and all…

SNAFU (March Paddy Whacker Challenge)

15321532 views66 comments11 fav

The unpublished writer remembered the carnage that surrounded his Foxhole in France and decided he was done praying. All around lay the evidence that no one was listening. The drunken pastor stumbled away.

Bumble Bee

22512251 views44 comments11 fav

This bumble-bee been following me around all day. Ever since I woke up, it's been with me. I just now smacked it to the ground and then it crawled on my bag and flew up to me again, zooming all around me; it's frightening me, a little. Bee…

Pageant Night

11941194 views22 comments22 favs

All the baby monsters are being born on stage.

Esmée

13201320 views33 comments11 fav

Esmée sat alone at a table on the terrace at Marina Jack’s in Sarasota. She had been there ten minutes and no waitress had approached her.

A Tender Button

616616 views33 comments22 favs

He looked at a man in a straw hat on YouTube and thought “that could've been me, if I'd learned to play the guitar.” He savored the wistfulness of the moment. The pluperfect always made him sad. But the conditional was almost too much to bear. Octopi were a…

Redacted.

18621862 views11 comment00 favs

Almost on cue, Xavier emerges and is in the vendor’s face. “X,” as he is known around here, is indoctrinating the obvious newbie on the merits of showing up earlier and the logistics of placeholders and markers.

The Audacity of My Ass

982982 views22 comments22 favs

But then there were car windows bashed out on both sides Glass on the ground like Kristallnacht

The Night Before the Last Day of Summer

28452845 views22 comments22 favs

Tonight is our last night to dream.

Nocturnal Bypass

12841284 views22 comments22 favs

As I fall to the ground I realize that in a few moments I will be experiencing a new kind of pain. The last pain. The last pain I will ever feel.

Still Pretty

860860 views33 comments11 fav

I saw this woman on a date at Denny’s Friday night With her 8-year-old son No ring, vacant stare Still pretty But wolfing down A stack of pancakes, Looking around the restaurant Occasionally At a party of kids From some church Wh

Eulogy

12921292 views22 comments11 fav

In one hand she cradles a cigarette, in the other a glass of red wine. Typically neither of these things would be allowed in here, and on this occasion it was thought that it would be better to let her do what she wanted.

Scenes From The Alternative Nativity

10851085 views44 comments11 fav

The three kings decide to leave their kingdoms, all on their own without family, retainers, armies or servants, and wander about the middle east carrying valuable items.

Jack Ketch in Hell

11421142 views22 comments11 fav

Lost in the booth of Mr Punch's dreams,Jack Ketch flinches at the imagesflickering across torn curtains.The chirpy projectionistsits in his nest,flinging pictures:A snake, rising from a discarded pair of clown's trousers.A monkey, balancing on a watermelon.A burning sofa.A…

The Here Here Here Lately

699699 views44 comments11 fav

electron metastasis

To The Guy Who Sat Next To Me On The Flight Home From Amsterdam

11821182 views33 comments00 favs

I guess you felt more comfortable holding your Moby Dick

Route Four

15501550 views44 comments11 fav

The little girl spooned strawberry yogurt into her mouth as a pleasant morning breeze swept across the balcony of the hotel. The girl lifted the cup and stuck her tongue inside to lick the yogurt off the edges. Across the small round table, the girl's mother sat…

Traveling Lightheaded

18611861 views44 comments11 fav

He lit my cigarette even though he didn't want me to smoke. Buying me drinks all night, he didn't complain, but he thought I drank too much.

Peeping to See if Spring has Sprung

979979 views44 comments11 fav

as if someone had spilled a bag of perfect diamonds on the world.

Before the Dance

16601660 views33 comments22 favs

A woman walked in from the kitchen. She sat next to him as he poured what was left in the whiskey bottle into each glass. “They could’ve given us more time to make a payment,” he said.