Recommended stories

Old Man's Winter

13311331 views11 comment00 favs

The old man’s face is worn and tired, his nose and cheeks tinted red over his pale black skin from the frosty January winds blustering through town. He looks more than half frozen, which I don’t find surprising.

Phantom

873873 views22 comments00 favs

There is an obstacle, as if truth has a place of its own. This is the phantom where my roommate turns off her headlights Upstate, while we’re singing: No more, No more, stay as you are.

Intangible Vectors of Influence (from "Emergency: Three Romances")

12331233 views11 comment00 favs

The young cop says, “Sorry ma’am, you’ll have to wait.” In the strobing red-blue glare he looks like a teenager. Melissa wonders if Tony had looked so young when he started, all those years ago.

I Can Sing Like That

908908 views11 comment00 favs

Here lately Daddy's been talking bout' filling momma full of holes. Not like he would do it cause' he likes talkin' just to hear the words come out even if they don't mean anything to anyone but him. But just to be on the safe side I went and hid them shells cause' he's got…

Peer Review

12421242 views22 comments00 favs

Joseph K. ran a publishing house in the shadow of the Castle. Perhaps “publishing house” is too grand a title. Joseph K. kept a battery of six or seven (depending on repairs) manual typewriters, a crate of carbon paper, and a large stapling machine

Nuptial Indemnity

712712 views22 comments00 favs

She had a body like an upside-down viola da gamba without the sound holes, frets or strings. Full at the top, narrowing at the waist, slender legs where the neck should have been.

The Motel

13921392 views11 comment00 favs

She dreamed of a beach.

Love Story

11031103 views11 comment00 favs

I don't know when it was I first stumbled across your blog. I know I definitely must've followed the link on your twitter profile, but how I found you in the first place, I have no idea. But fate works in mysterious ways, I suppose. I remember I then visited your blog every…

Dream

980980 views11 comment00 favs

Lately, instead of the images of dreams waking me up, as has always been the case, it is sounds that jolt me awake. The thumps and roars and slithering of creatures unseen. The ghosts that slam cupboards shut. The apparitions of robbers breaking down the front door:…

Toy

701701 views11 comment00 favs

In the store, multi-color kites dance along the ceiling. And in the costume aisle, a young mother shows her daughter how to tie her shoe. “Bunny ears, around the corner…” Glass animals shine in rows on high shelves. A boy examines lengths…

Conjecture

10871087 views22 comments00 favs

Sunday, May 9, 1773 Sir — The world must at present be perpetual on the primitive state of human nature Conjecture The jealousy and envy boils over a dead weight strangled serpents in the Temple

Our Date Was Better In Reverse

957957 views00 comments11 fav

I felt my words reach out and try to grab him by the heart. They missed.

Gyre and Gimble

13541354 views11 comment00 favs

I’ve done my part of the job in conservative clothing. Lonnie’s done her part looking like Dolly Parton.

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

11221122 views22 comments00 favs

Lu loved his mother, but her anxieties nagged at him like poison ivy. You can't avoid scratching it, but the more you do, the worse it gets.

Bootstraps

15971597 views22 comments00 favs

I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup

Homunculus

11321132 views11 comment00 favs

Tiny was my daughter. Or what was left of her. A mucous-y chunk of what was once in my womb and then wasn’t.

Kamal (from "Echoes: Five Men Speak")

11501150 views11 comment00 favs

Hoo-ah! I love these open mikes, I get a chance to pour it out, this… whatever it is, this passion, all this love from I’ll never know where, and then, and then, sometimes, too much hate. Everything’s like all zowie!—splashing scarlet and purple,

Modes of Motion

932932 views22 comments00 favs

I saw an ocean drained and filled / at the flats of Saemangeum.

Grand Union

993993 views22 comments00 favs

She suggested just moving in together. A lot less constrained by convention she, on occasion, did not wear a bra.

How It Started

696696 views11 comment00 favs

At two AM I went to bed, and the mill shut down shortly after. The silence jerked me out of sleep so fast I almost screamed. Choking and sweating, I lay there and tried to figure out why I was so scared. And then I realized: for the first time in half a y

Three Teeth

12631263 views11 comment00 favs

Three teeth. You can pick them out if you hit pause just right. Probably not a person in the entire valley who hasn’t seen that video from the Eastern Cheerleading Finals. They even showed the tape on the eleven o’clock news in Scranton, my face ci

A Christmas Mistake

12441244 views11 comment00 favs

But that night we were happy, looking all around at the bright lights of the several cities that we could see.

AFTER

954954 views11 comment00 favs

Two lovers — their genders / faces / social identities / etc. up to the viewer’s imagination (though I caution you, dear reader, not to imagine yourself in this role due to the psychic intensity of the following passages) — writhe against each other

Off the Map

14271427 views11 comment00 favs

It's difficult to remember, much less write down, the hard times you thought were unforgettable when you have a full stomach. It's hard to remember that dirty little room you rented in that house, from a Bosnian landlord, on 27th avenue and Missouri. The…

The Plinktonians

12801280 views11 comment11 fav

Brian had spent the morning filling out applications all over Knox County, and by noon he was more than ready to call it a day. But apparently there was one last squirt of virtue in him, because heading home he saw a Help…

A Poem Written About You Because I Missed You

675675 views11 comment00 favs

what i will always remember of you is of that singular sunday / when a black lock of hair brushed against your cheek

Tournament Legend

821821 views11 comment00 favs

Man I can hit a shot from forty feet. Snap! No rim. You can’t.

Tooth Decay

16401640 views11 comment00 favs

The schedule fell smoothly into place: After Imogene went home at the end of the day, Calvin locked the office door, then he and Rosalie marched into the examination room and she flossed him.

Where We Come From

11381138 views22 comments00 favs

Where We Come From (ver. 2.0) (Leadwood, Missouri pop. 1,200) I Matt lit a joint here driving beneath the arms of dying trees The moon shone through in jigsaw puzzles that we could never quite figure out Gravel crackled like leaves in fire …

Momma’s Don’t let Your Daughters Grow up to be Cowdykes

14511451 views22 comments00 favs

She could see very clearly in her mind many size five girls with radically short hair and Cowdyke outfits from places like L. L. Bean.