Leah Mueller
Leah Mueller's work is published in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, CitronReview, New Flash Fiction Review, Does It Have Pockets, Outlook Springs, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has received several nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. One of her short stories appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her fourteenth book, "Stealing Buddha" was published by Anxiety Press in 2024.
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CHRYSALIS​
I am old
enough at last
to make my own myths.
Like Persephone,
I dwell part-time
in arid spaces.
As heat
sinks into bone,
my furious skin
erupts like a volcano. In Summer,
I travel north
to cooler spaces.
Rain smears
its balm
against my cheeks.
Did I wait too long?
It took
decades
to crawl towards darkness.
I was
never ready before,
but now,
I know North from
South, and I won’t forget
again.