Cherrypicked stories
Trying to change the world in an afternoon.
It had more than I ever could have; invisibility, freedom. The chance to just leap into the air on an updraft of wind and soar away into the blue abyss, never to be seen again.
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- 2 comments
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- 854 reads
Escape
Say your father and mother come home one night, and they are particularly drunk; so they neglect to censor their opinions of each other. And you shield your little brothers ears
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- 5 comments
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- 1208 reads
Strange Places (IP)
Her mother seeks her out – but not in her bed, for she seldom sleeps there...
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- 20 comments
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- 4489 reads
These Dreams
This is a Pantoum, I hope it is more successful than the Sestina* was. * http://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/babbacombe-fair
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- 5 comments
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- 2066 reads
a flower lends its hands to gift charity
glow the sun, glow the valiant rose slippers continents of buds under the rain, lending her hands spread out, the stalk buds to stem she says, "I went out to find paradise
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- 3 comments
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- 1486 reads
Before We were Bistered ( at the request of mark_yelland-brown )
Fling off bistered slings wrapped upon God. Hidden in enshrined shine of dandelion is a symmetry of butter-yellow plumage worn upon joy's bird-face, labile to a breeze,
Your Violet Wind
You touched My mind The very first day We met: I felt your eyes; I felt your violet wind. I knew that you Were different From the rest: You wanted blood; You wanted love— My kiss.
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- 3 comments
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- 1371 reads
A Quiet Riot
A searching and fearless moral inventory of our great land's character defects, as told by a defecting spy who wishes to remain anonymous
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- 8 comments
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- 2080 reads
Ab Initio
(Edit) ‘Neath a starry maple’s shade I was young, once...
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- 10 comments
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- 3245 reads
Diary of a broken man (part one)
There’s a fire in your belly, raging like an inferno, Acting out in performances of violence at a whim, The line between loyalty to preconceived ideas of wrong and right,
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- 8 comments
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- 1908 reads
Writing the Alphabet in a Letter
A brief correspondence.
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- 6 comments
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- 2533 reads
Writing the Alphabet in the Jungle
Fido has a big day.
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- 6 comments
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- 2451 reads
Our Eulogy
Let them regurgitate some such softness to warm the belly, like mother to young. We will be corpses of nourishment. A labor sometimes too hard to swallow when alive.
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- 854 reads
Howling Like A Rabid Wolf
What we have here...is failure to communicate
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- 25 comments
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- 8913 reads
Nevaeh
My first day on the run brings me to a pit-stop café beneath a haloey sign that radiates a promise of pancakes and milkshakes
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- 17 comments
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- 4737 reads
Dangerous encounter
Find myself sitting opposite a dangerous-looking man, all big bones and wiry sinew.
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- 5 comments
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- 2254 reads
If you meet me, have some sympathy 21
A story in 200-word episodes. Our infernal hero escapes from cyberspace but loses his disguise.
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- 11 comments
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- 2702 reads
Dunderbeck (reworked)
There was a man named Dunderbeck a butcher was his trade, On the street he sold old meat and the sausages he made, But people rarely bought his meat his business was joke,
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- 4 comments
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- 2085 reads
Zapatista Blues
There Is a border Inside My Autumnal Mind: I remember The future And I see What has Died.
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- 5 comments
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- 1328 reads
'The Gentle Giant'
I’d not realised before how tall he was – six feet four, at least.
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- 14 comments
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- 4663 reads
The Surreal Monologue of a Baby Grand Played… in Sexual Minor
What frisks Maestros upon this, these slits between white, black raised, inner ivory chest nibbed with shrill ebony tinge? It is all about the tone of cracks…
Get Into The Light: Chapter Fourteen- A Budgie is the Perfect Cure for Mental Illness
Lola is taken to the emergency ward and finally begins to see that she may have a problem...
A Ghost, A Girl, A Garret Room
Welcome friends from me, your host My tale this night concerns a ghost, A ghost, a girl, a garret room A tragic tale of love and doom. The garret room of which I tell
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- 10 comments
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- 2690 reads
The White House pledge
"remains committed to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay" A British national, lays stripped naked, in a dingy cell, fit for no dog,
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- 2 comments
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- 856 reads
Hieronymus Bosch's American Landscape
Bethany Glaspell approached the first-ever meeting with her great uncle much as a cat burglar might plan his next heist, telling no one , neither friend nor family, her intentions.
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- 12 comments
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- 5093 reads
Margaret3
embellishment of the story
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- 12 comments
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- 2332 reads
A Night In: Next Gen
On an unusually warm night in London, I’m wearing newly purchased easy to access clothes from New Look. Dex faces stage front. This is romance of the new age.
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- 8 comments
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- 3082 reads
Zola Works At The Planetarium
Zola works at the planetarium Where numbers of people drop debris On the carpet in the dark
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- 3 comments
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- 1614 reads
CE N'EST PAS UNE SORTIE:
sorry to say but you know the way que les choses viennent voler à vous like glass shattering upon hitting a tree tout en volant très rapidement afin dans votre voiture
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- 2 comments
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- 968 reads
A Kind of Loving
Wonders where it went... the passion that was theirs.
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- 10 comments
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- 2840 reads
Seline and the Bank Robber
A dramatic tale of a bank robbery foiled by a brave heroine. Err... actually that's another story, not this one.
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- 3 comments
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- 1160 reads
On Avoiding Taxidermy
A real catch...
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- 8 comments
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- 1473 reads
Love on a Merry-Go-Round
It was love at first sight Flowing mane Chocolate brown eyes Gleaming teeth White coat, highly impractical Already showing signs of wear You were going round and round Like me
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- 9 comments
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- 2236 reads
Yaacob's Curry
’Hey, if it’s curry you miss, I’ll cook you one man, what’s the problem’. Yaacob was a new friend who’d gravitated to our small group of curry-deprived isolates.
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- 692 reads
Dreams of a Better Place - Part 2
Trevor's daddy looks away from the TV long enough to tell Trevor to hush up, Trevor giggles and copies him 'smush shup!' and goes back to his toys, all of them scattered around him haphazardly.
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- 866 reads
Soul Shavings (A Shady Cloister IP)
I imagine it’s because she may be keeping secrets. What is she listening to? is what the voice in my head keeps asking.
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- 17 comments
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- 4596 reads
Are You the Wind?
So, this is how the mind expands: it pulsates On the tips of pens - The ink flows to the Page like a violet rain, falling calmly
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- 7 comments
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- 1841 reads
Turf Man
Inspiration comes in many guises...
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- 11 comments
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- 2797 reads
Ploegsteert Wood (I.P)
Ploegsteert Wood is in Belgium, and was part of the Battle of Messines in World War One.
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- 9 comments
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- 2303 reads
Amy
I don't know what to say when you say you look fat...
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- 20 comments
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- 5039 reads
Get Into The Light: Chapter Thirteen- Is Herman Brood a Credible Artist?
Lola's mental state becomes much worse...
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- 3 comments
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- 965 reads
This Serpent Tongue Cannot Be Colonized
I yearn to Speak the Silent language Of sun-burnt peasants— With a vibrant accent, Colorful with The pulse of Ancient myth: This serpent tongue— This pride— Cannot be colonized.
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- 23 comments
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- 5093 reads
The Sixth Sun Has Arrived
I did not Cross the border But My mother did And so This battle Is mine— And I will Surely win; I can take on Entire governments With my pen—
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- 6 comments
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- 1420 reads
Swimming
The first time I started to worry about the curves of my body. Was between the cubicles after swimming record laps and diving to the bottom of the pool; submerging myself for an hour.
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- 13 comments
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- 2571 reads
Korn
I had intended to book Korn Korn are an American nu metal band unfortunately I booked Corn Corn are a Hungarian brother and sister duo who single medieval agrarian folk couplets
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- 4 comments
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- 2541 reads
Dreams of a Better Place - Part 1
...Lil' Trev is sitting in the lounge playing with his toys. His dad is watching the game highlights on their brand new 50" HD LCD Sony television and Trevor might as well be invisible.
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- 2 comments
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- 1136 reads
I wonder (Thoughts of a soldier)
I wonder what it must be like To be alone in the light To see the beauty of every day And the warmth of every night Without that voice In the back of your mind Crying out
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- 2 comments
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- 531 reads
Rose By Any Other Name
All she has - theirs, when she's gone.
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- 12 comments
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- 2599 reads
Home is where the art is
I knew just where I was this time yesterday - the old familiar smells of linseed turps and oils, sounds of easels dragging over dusty floorboards - clips klinking, restraining
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- 34 comments
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- 10973 reads
Orange Cheese
Orange Cheese left on the table strewn, Off a plate, stringy and tender The little boy sat watching; Ants crawling and lingering; The air was musty and old;
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- 5 comments
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- 976 reads
Daisy Loves to Bounce By Hannah Hepton
This story is intended as a children's picture book for the under 5's.
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- 7 comments
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- 3419 reads
Fire
I used to compare myself with a fire, So sudden, so restless, so hard to predict - A definite danger from miles to admire, The gamut of colors one couldn't depict.
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- 3 comments
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- 1131 reads
3
When my family moved away from the village to a new town I was excited at first. When we started school in the excitement turned into sadness.
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- 2 comments
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- 462 reads
Tiddley Tales
Something rotten is afoot in Tiddley Town
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- 1 comment
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- 749 reads
Enough Blue
At the coast we are so tired. We buy fish and chips to take away and sit in the curl of the bay, not talking. I take your photo just to prove there was sea, fish and chips
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- 4 comments
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- 1053 reads
Aventurine (IP)
We thought cloisters were a sort of shellfish. We thought Wigan was on the coast. We thought wishes were granted on full moons if made over a dish of water.
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- 4 comments
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- 1049 reads
Small Wonder
The cord – cut, but the bond firmly tied.
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- 12 comments
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- 2756 reads
In Shady Cloisters (IP)
Resigned to history, its Art Deco, stained glass windows.
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- 6 comments
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- 1421 reads
Along the Cat's Back
(at the edge of Black Mountains, Olchon valley)
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- 13 comments
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- 4830 reads