Recommended stories

Arbitrary Dilettante

15081508 views33 comments11 fav

Every damned time we came back to Richland County, I told JuneBug to just do whatever she had to do but to leave me and Skeeter out of it. And every goddamned time, we ended up somewhere like this, the two sisters hook-armed and conspiratorial, and Skeete

A Study in Plastics

12571257 views55 comments00 favs

She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

Wayne Recalls Rocking and the Power of Positive Thinking

16391639 views11 comment11 fav

My mother told me I came out of her screaming and didn’t stop for two years. After that I took up rocking.

Going Commando

879879 views11 comment11 fav

I have the fear of comedy I have the laughter of war I have the need of a commando To come sack and ransack us Over and over again, O I am a pillow, a rock, an ant A soft Southern deer in the headlights I have the mask of Anonymity Lyi

Riddle 44 from the Exeter Book: The Key

16681668 views11 comment22 favs

Curiously made thing

Defender

20992099 views44 comments00 favs

He had what was commonly referred to in junior high as the ‘bullshit mustache’.

Land of Our Fathers

14981498 views22 comments11 fav

He called me one Friday when I was a kid and told me he wanted to go trout fishing. He had dreamt that I was a worm or a fly -- he couldn't remember which -- but he was sure I would bring good luck to the stream. The next morning, before grandma awoke, I

My Not Entirely Serious Predictions for Season Four of Sherlock

12101210 views33 comments11 fav

The BBC's “Sherlock” is among the most popular shows on TV, and there has been much speculation among die-hard fans like myself about what the upcoming fourth season will hold. Having consulted my own crystal ball, here's what I see happening: Irene…

Something Going Down, Like a Branch Snapped by Wind

14501450 views11 comment11 fav

This is 57% of middle America, I'm convinced: doomed.

wolf of my soul

13991399 views22 comments11 fav

Happiness is the twin disobedience, to hear, to burn, to fret, desiring union. They shall touch flesh, bluish even, that elicited the happy city's sin. Why be silent? The untouchable nothing? Let there be that place, a little swelling therein, which

Thing To Do In Deptford When You're Dead.

14111411 views66 comments00 favs

Velvet answered the door in a red leather dress that was made with just about enough material to make a wallet, and looking like a long limbed drink of water calling out to a thirsty man.

faking an orgasm

11681168 views22 comments11 fav

There’s an account of roasting inward, holding myself like a rock inflamed, my inward joy rotting my veins. How was I supposed to go on loving anything after you? Like a pigeon hated at home, awaiting your passionate kisses? Knowing how your classical k

In the North Woods (or, The War of Art)

15971597 views22 comments11 fav

For the residents of Oak Morrow, entropy is an art form. They break their own windows and crash their cars into their living rooms. Grannies and pets can usually scoot out of the way before they’re crushed under the juggernaut of creativity.

Releasing Your Inner Bigfoot

13251325 views22 comments11 fav

In the ’70′s, Bigfoot was romantically linked with Farrah Fawcett, spotted in an Arkansas 7-11 with Elvis, and tabbed the front-runner to be Secretary of the Interior had Gerald Ford defeated Jimmy Carter.

Deviance

12131213 views22 comments11 fav

I tried to enlighten them. For my trouble, they tried to have me deprogrammed. I condemned their narrowness of mind; they pitied me my naiveté. I ridiculed their religious bourgeois complacency, but they really didn’t know what I was talking about.

washing in the dawn

12601260 views22 comments11 fav

Here and there a few bits of beauty, with the highest respect, reverence, erect with pride. Almost twice a thousand dawns, ten thousand in intimacy, the breasts, the nipples, means of the world to nourish itself, by the intimate bay. It's almost pun

Where Does Love Come?

12301230 views11 comment11 fav

He was rummaging through his giant pile of clothing on the floor, looking for something to wear to sleep. When he couldn't quite tell what was dirty and what was clean, he knew it was time for laundry. Just as he was going to…

Flop-Flip

14721472 views44 comments00 favs

Little stuff at first: mistaking their dog for a cat, attempting to start the car with a bar of soap, or using a newspaper to dry the dishes. Lately, he’d been slipping: calling her by his mother’s name during sex, berating his boss for lackluster profit

Trajectory

13391339 views22 comments11 fav

Soon the world is on film that is burning.

The Girl Next Door to Andy

12791279 views22 comments11 fav

Then there was this short little girl, Jo Ann, who had a daughter and was divorced, who lived next door to my buddy Andy. She told me right after we did it one night that she had always wanted to have sex with me when she was growing up, as a teenager, I

Box Kite

787787 views22 comments11 fav

The box kite floats high over the marsh.

Ophelia

16291629 views11 comment11 fav

Her ghost/kept coming back/to Hamlet

Extra Ticket

15581558 views11 comment11 fav

My best friend died yesterday. His name was Franklin Seever, but we all called him Lin. It started when we were in Little League. There were two Franklins on the team so Coach, who was my dad, called the fat one Frank and my best friend Lin.

Jill Walks Across the Snow Covered Gas Station Parking Lot, Sits Next to Jack on the Curb and Gives Him a Cigarette

11511151 views11 comment11 fav

Maybe adulthood isn't the destination I always thought it was?

Cow & Fly

11041104 views22 comments11 fav

If I can eat a cow...

fragments of their lives survive

13331333 views22 comments11 fav

Only fragments of their lives survive, like broken Sapphos. I have known them, alleged killer of themselves for the love of a man., but we know this is an invention. The leader of a whole guild of girls, who wrote 7 books of poems. What happened to them

Particle (7)

10221022 views22 comments11 fav

By the time he says “I am tired of the smell of pig shit and death” you’ve already lost interest

Lester Young, Grand Daddy of Cool

10771077 views22 comments11 fav

Young is credited with the first use of “cool” as a expression of approval, and he embodied the concept in his life and in his playing. His only problem was he was born too soon, in 1909.

to a gregarious stranger

14251425 views33 comments00 favs

Three lines.

Across from Margaret Atwood's House

12271227 views11 comment11 fav

Been running so long You've been running so long I bet you can't remember What you're running from