Top Stories
New stories you'll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
Fake News. Top Story - August 2024.
A poem written by me in 2020, as I was discovering my evolving sexuality later in life, amidst the chaos that unfolded that year. This is a swirl of a conversation between both myself, as well as the discourse around ignorant people who are intolerant to queer folks. For most of us, understanding our queerness and owning it can come with a lot of guilt and shame.
By Ashley Antunes2 years ago in Poets
Diary of an Auto-Immune Survivalist. Top Story - August 2024.
Staring at the Midmark Ritter 204, the examination bed called to me. I craved its soft comfort and embrace. That pristine, crisp paper sheet of protective hygienic covering was what prevented me from making myself comfortable. I yearned to lie my body upon that tan leather table and relax my muscles and close my eyes, if only for a moment. The bed may as well have been encased in glass. The white parchment crumpled at the slightest touch, and lying upon it would crush and tear it to pieces. Disturbing it would be the evidence of the attention-seeking behavior that I was often accused of when seeing a new specialist. That paper stood between me and a few moments of desired rest.
By Chelas Montanye2 years ago in Psyche
The Ego Death of Agent Thea Claudette. Runner-up in L*pogram Challenge. Top Story - August 2024.
Someone awakes. A room an untalented author would conjure when confronted by a blank page: featureless wh- featureless alabaster walls, pale grey PVC floor; above, fluorescent tubes.
By Ben Henley2 years ago in Fiction
Trans Hate Affects Cis Women Too. Top Story - August 2024.
I have too many Trans friends to have expected better from the world media, but somehow, I'm still disappointed. Trans people, whether transitioned or not, whether they identify as male or female, attract a lot of undeserved hate. What genitalia a person has is between them and their sexual partners and is, legally speaking, none of Joe or Jane Public's business.
By Natasja Rose2 years ago in Pride
The Surprising Efficacy of the He's Weird Argument. Top Story - August 2024.
There were many moments during Trump's run in 2016 that seemed as though they might spell the end for his candidacy and career in politics. From calling Mexicans "criminals" and "rapists," to the time he invited Russian interference in our election (a request Putin was more than happy to oblige), to the release of the Access Hollywood tape - the now-infamous "Grab em' by the pussy" comment.
By Ben Ulansey2 years ago in Humans
Get The Tech Outta Here. Top Story - August 2024.
July 2nd, 2014. 21 year old Foris Summers is just waking up from a long night and rolls over to the right side of his bed to grab his phone and start scrolling through the news feeds of his social media. First things he saw was the usuals: friends out partying the night before, one of his little cousins just had a birthday so his aunt was celebrating and a close friend was posting their relationship status while taking a selfie at work. “Good gracious” Foris started with exhaust. “Is anyone ever gonna get a life or is it just gonna be post like I have a life 24/7?”.
By Joe Patterson2 years ago in Fiction
My recent reflection. Top Story - August 2024.
Life has its ways of teaching you important lessons. Everything that happens in our existence strides its convoluted intersectionality with a purpose, a purpose that in its divinity has an impactful metamorphosis in our reality. How little do we know about what is about to come when we so confoundingly announce that I know this is how my life would turn out to be. In its own magnanimous and unexpected ways, you would get to what you deserve rather than what you want in most anomalies that our choices create. Whether we get what we want or face a delay or rejection, every event is a rendered outcome of the myriad of choices we chose and how divine intervention in its beauty shielded us from the things that could have destroyed us.
By Hridya Sharma2 years ago in Confessions
The Magic of a Big Mound of Dirt. Runner-Up in Through the Lens Challenge. Top Story - August 2024.
My stomach is tight. I haven't done this in a while. I light my first joint and fiddle with my camera even though it's already set up the way I like it. I ask the model about her day. The model is a friend of a friend. Her skin glows. She walks with a sense of coiled and casual power. She both does and doesn't know how beautiful she is. Her hair falls in soft curls. The white, linen dress she chose for our photoshoot tangles with her ankles in the wind. We slow down and scope out our first location: a tree next to the old Hooters of our hometown downtown.
By sleepy drafts2 years ago in Photography
2026 The War of the Americas. Top Story - August 2024.
Author's preface: The earlier parts of the story can be found at the links. Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI Sylvia sat quietly in the very back row of the heavily armored prisoner transport bus with her head down and her hands ziptied behind her back. Four Mexican soldiers armed with FX-05 Xiuhcoatl rifles patrolled the aisle of the bus which currently was home to Sylvia and at least fifty other American POWs. All had been recently arrested after they were declared enemy combatants following the United States bombing of several targets along the US Mexican border including the city of Tijuana and the (formerly) busiest land border crossing in the world at San Ysidro. That crossing had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble by US cruise missiles launched from just offshore, killing hundreds, including at least 150 US customs and border patrol agents who had not been prewarned about the surprise attack. Sylvia was well acquainted with firearms and had great respect for the FX-05 assault rifle which was designed and built by the Dirección General de Industria Militar del Ejército (General Directorate of Military Industry of the Army) through the Fabricas Militares (Military Factory). The name translated roughly as "Fire Serpent", or literally "Turquoise-Serpent" in classical Nahuatl, a language with which Sylvia was only passingly familiar, unlike the six other languages she spoke fluently which included Latin, Ancient Greek, and Middle Egyptian along with Spanish, English, Italian, and German. The fact that she was fluent in Spanish or any other language was something she kept secret from the Mexicans and everyone else. The more they saw her as just another ignorant American the better. Her knowledge of Spanish had allowed her to learn a few things the guards had spoken amongst themselves thinking no one would understand. Importantly, she had heard that the war against Mexico was not at all popular in the United States. Donald Trump had gravely miscalculated the appetite of the average American for bloodshed, especially when it was American's blood that was being shed. The families of the CBP agents killed in the bombing of San Ysidro border crossing had rallied a huge number of Americans to their sides in protest and marched on Washington en masse. Thousands or even tens of thousands of Americans had been arrested and imprisoned in makeshift prison camps scattered around the Washington DC area. She and the other prisoners had been constantly on the move for almost a week. Changing from bus to bus as they slowly made there way to wherever it was they were going. She had learned that they were still in the Mexican border state of Baja, California and were heading to a newly erected prison camp somewhere just south of Mexicali. She had feared they would be flown to the mainland and imprisoned there, but at least for now that did not seem to be the plan. Sylvia was very afraid of what she might find when they finally did reach their destination. She had only been interrogated perfunctorily when initially arrested, a fact she was puzzled by, but knew a much more serious interrogation lay in wait for her. She had been rehearsing her cover story and was prepared for anything they might throw at her. The fact that she had been rehearsing and preparing a similar cover story to use with her own husband had she not decided to tell him about her new job with the CIA made the process much easier. The CIA had also helped her considerably in this regard by making sure she had rock solid alibis in place for each and every place she would claim to have been, and every thing she would claim to have done and been doing over the past almost two years of living in Mexico and working in the United States.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Fiction
