Maya's Micros
As a supplement to our main issues of The Closed Eye Open, we have an ongoing feature called Maya’s Micros. As the name suggests, it will be curated by contributing editor Maya Highland and will exclusively feature short form writing.
Since it can be a long wait between issues, we’ve decided to keep the creativity rolling by focusing on the littlest form of creative writing—micros. Whether you consider them micro-poems or micro-fictions, they are welcome here . . . as long as each individual piece is 108 or fewer. (Why 108, you may ask? Have fun speculating . . .)
We like the idea of saying a lot in a small space–the complexity of self-expression in balance with an economy of language. And of course, since they are short, they can be enjoyed within a few moments—perhaps a line or phrase sticking with you to carry along for a while.
We will update Maya’s Micros in small “batches,” 1-2 times per month.
If you like what you see and would like to get e-mail updates, please e-mail us at theclosedeyeopen@gmail.com.
Click here to submit your micros for publication.
Also, you may follow us on Instagram @theclosedeyeopen.
July 2025
Batch 089: 07/29/25
Anna M. Warrock
Before We Are Married
Sleeping with your hand at my ear,
I hear the train whistle.
Freight is moving into the city,
bringing us goods to build with
and devour.
Your heartbeat sounds
in your fingertips
and reaches into my ear.
Nonattachment
The meaning of a word, solace. Sunlight, yes,
every day and darkness at night. Birds
singing in their decline. Automobile living rooms—
take-out coffee cup, smartphone. We skim
over the ground. The sky fills with lines.
S. Marie Watkins
Zest
A zest for life is discussed
over sugared rims
and boistrous laughter. It fills the space
with hope and desire, but
the sugar-rimmed glasses switched
to coffee mugs
and laughter to silence. I’m reading
too much into drinks, but when I flip
the cup, let the liquid
pool and leave the grounds behind
to fortell my fortune,
they drip down the sides
and flee my gaze, aware
of the weight it carries, that hope
can be a burden sometimes. They flee from me
and I understand. I chose my future
long ago based
on the idea of promises. I’m not sure
I can handle anymore
broken mugs.
Zen Zielke
greyhound
the bus pulled out coughing black smoke, and I stood there swaying like a drunk, duffel split at the seams, a five tucked in my sock, my last one, stale steak on my breath, neon sputtering in the rain, like drowning fireflies, and a radio playing Strait so loud it shook the puddles.
I thought about chasing the bus, waving my arms like a stupid hero, but my feet cemented the ground, and the only thing that moved was the rain down my collar.
Rosalie Hendon
Tena
You fed me tangerine slices with your hands
on the fourth floor of a half-built building
on the edge of the rainforest, or maybe
it was half-destroyed, the point is
there were no walls
We sat in the humid air and looked
at the jungle, too poor to pay a guide,
content to imagine the birds and tree frogs
and now you’re married and I’m divorced
and both of us live far, far away
from Tena
Meg Taylor
Confetti Moment
The light hit
the chipped mug
just right.
A sparkle,
like confetti
thrown by the sky
to remind me—
this too is enough.
The smell of rain,
a fluffy cloud,
a bloom cracking concrete.
I laughed
without an audience.
I exhaled
without asking.
And for a second,
nothing needed
fixing.
Contributor Information
Anna M. Warrock’s publications include From the Other Room, Slate Roof Press Chapbook Award winner, and the chapbooks Horizon and Smoke and Stone. Besides appearing in journals, her work is anthologized in Kiss Me Goodnight, poetry and prose on childhood mother-loss, a Minnesota Book Award Finalist. Among other projects she has hosted a poets’ dialogue on writing memoirs, directed a panel on grief and poetry at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and held seminars on understanding grief and loss through poetry. Her poems have been set to music, choreographed, and inscribed in a Boston area subway station. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Somerville, MA. Website: www.annamwarrock.com
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S. Marie Watkins is a multi-media artist residing in Lake Tahoe, California with their partner, two children, and seven-pound hell hound. They have been featured in Oakland Arts Review, Oddball Magazine, Santa Clara Review, and Living in the Mountains Anthology. They were the poetry winner of the 2022 Mental Health Awareness Writing Contest in Please See Me Lit Mag. They prefer the company of trees, but this were-extrovert will reluctantly socialize during the full moon. Check out more of their work at linktr.ee/smwm.
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Zen Zielke began writing in college during a stint working in television and advertising. During this time he had a piece published in Mixed Feelings by Avan Jogia. Since then he mainly writes poetry and op-ed pieces for local magazines. He is based in Denver, CO.
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Rosalie Hendon is an arborist living in Columbus, Ohio. Her work is published in Ravens Perch, Quibble Lit, Sad Girls Diaries, Pollux, Blue Bottle, and Willawaw, among others. Rosalie is inspired by ecology, relationships, and stories passed down through generations.
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Meg Taylor is a poet and writer navigating the unlearning of everything she was taught to be. Her work wrestles with identity, corporate absurdity, female invisibility, and the beauty buried in burnout. With a voice that balances grit, humor, and emotional precision, she explores what it means to remember yourself after years of forgetting.
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July 2025
Batch 088: 07/01/25
Elizabeth Rae Bullmer
Body as Oracle
break me into bits
of once-wholeness.
make of my body
wishbone & wing.
fill a basket with feathers
& shells & luck-infused coins,
orbital bone for vision, tiny
anvil to gain the ancestors’ ear.
etch your quandaries
into the flat of scapula,
fetch your curious
bright-green flame.
crack blistered minerals;
decipher their riddled fortunes.
squint & scry myriad futures
from my returned-to dust.
Jeremy Radin
The Porcupine Star
What’s left for saying. The storm
goes out. In the dark woods
a slightly smaller, darker woods.
We are severed by my stupidity.
Alas, in my stupidity bound.
Unto the sea goodnight has fallen.
In the window, the Porcupine Star
lifts its mind. I did not ask to ask
for you. This is a trajectory.
Amanda Andrews
Topophilia
The connection between places and us,
where we exist parallel
made of the same
[aspiration—
—obsession]
to belong—everywhere.
Dale Going
Unabridged
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico-
volcanoconiosis
is the longest-lettered word
not easier to read in italics
a chronic lung disease from inhaling
sand & ash
I think I might have it
Agnostic Prayers
Morning Prayer
Act on dear axons act on & up
You are the mercury god
The Maia’s son the Iris
The poet messenger transmitter
Evening Prayer
Thou snippet of empathy
bestowed upon us
by evolution
Pray thou art growing
Richard Pettigrew
The Luminous Island
Lies tropically submissive
to white lather chanties
of the firm ocean hand
slapping weathered hips
shaking lush ripe coconuts
on hot white sand
lays open a
soft jungle underbelly
probed hard by a brilliant sun
mushroom birthing
exaggerations of palms
plumerias and ginger blossoms
seducing island dwellers
a bare foot slide on her
luminous lava skin.
Contributor Information
Elizabeth Rae Bullmer has been writing since the age of seven. Bullmer’s work has appeared in Pensive, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Cloudbank, Sky Island Journal, Her Words, Anacapa Review, and The Awakenings Review. Her most recent chapbook is Skipping Stones on the River Styx. She’s a licensed massage/sound therapist, facilitates writing/healing workshops, serves on two community poetry boards and is the mother of two phenomenal humans, living with three fantastic felines in Kalamazoo.
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Jeremy Radin is a writer and actor. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, The Sun, Only Poems, and elsewhere. He is the author of three collections of poetry: Belly God (Orison Books, forthcoming 2026), Dear Sal (Not A Cult, 2022), and Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). As an actor, he has worked extensively in theater, film, and TV. He lives in New York, where he likes to sit in the park and point at birds. Follow him @germyradin.
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Amanda Andrews is an author, poet, and artist, graduating from Brock University with a degree in creative writing and philosophy. Over the years she’s been sponsored on writing platforms with over half a million reads, self-published her own works as well as been featured in an array of poetry collections including Cosmic Daffodil, Blood + Honey, Brock’s 2022 Sustainability Collection, the Song’s of the Phoenix anthology, and many more. When she’s not working on novels, you can be sure to find her scribbling poems down in her notebook. She enjoys writing either “a little too close to home” poetry or poetry that teeters between fun and experimental.
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Dale Going’s new books are The Beautiful Language of Our Disaster (Codhill Press, awarded Guest Editor Selection) and For the Anniversaries of All Loving Kinds of Meetings (Albion Books). Her previous collections are The View They Arrange (Kelsey St. Press) and As/of the Whole (SFSU Award, selected by Brenda Hillman). Sonnets of Succor and Sorrow, a manuscript of her collaboration with collage artist Marie Carbone, was one of three finalists for Fence Books’ 2025 Ottoline Prize. Her work has been supported by the Fund for Poetry, California Arts Council, and Residency Fellowships at Yaddo, Watermill Center, Wedding Cake House, and Djerassi. Recent poems appear in Annulet, BlazeVOX, The Closed Eye Open, Interim, New American Writing, Posit, VOLT, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City. https://linktr.ee/dalegoing
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Richard Pettigrew is a retired surfer poet living on Kauai. His poetry is inspired by island life.
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June 2025
Batch 087: 06/05/25
Florence Murry
Too Red the Brick
Clover festers up, cracks
overwhelms black river rock & sinks
into soil. The underneath disappears.
Leaves fade to gray.
Barely there, barely there
Where am I today?
The sun high in the all blue sky.
I am with my old holds—
failings & fears.
Clover takes over—
I pull it out
thin root & all.
Lewis LaCook
Mr. Congeniality
Something in the complexity of relationships with others
compels me to run away. The city was planned by starlight.
Because beauty always looks the other way. A lip
where light ends puckers the beginning of everything
I don’t know. This morning I bit down on understanding
that life is not enough. A tooth chipped in to digest
these digressions. For the next few hours I made things impossible
for the people in my life. Because beauty uses us
until the duty to attend to it becomes law.
The city plans to talk you out of it.
Liz deBeer
Bottom Feeders
Our family’s been derided as low-class, snot-face bottom feeders. But since our nominations for environmental achievement, we’re cordially invited to festivities with fancy folks. Google us — trolls rarely torment us or call us slime balls anymore. We’re filter feeders now, with people begging us to join their bougie beach clubs. The lesson: we water custodians didn’t much change, just doin’ what we do. It’s the others who’re looking at us different, since they got their dirty water troubles. Used to be they’d chew us up to pluck our pearls, but they’re wooing us these days, hoping we’ll be distracted by accolades to clean up the messes they’ve made.
Cat Robinson
On the Ones Hiding in the Walls
they snatch things no one notices
like pocket change
doorstops
& time
like midday naps
first loves
& ballpoint pens
sometimes they collect
unworn earring backs
broken nail clippings
& torn obituaries
baby teeth
cider bottle caps
& a widow’s tears
half melted candles
rain drops of anger
& post-it-notes—lime green
Kamakshi Lekshmanan
salt
who knows the source of tears roamed to summon strength
foaming and annihilating by the shore.
not shy but bare,
screaming and steering stings
they say its minerals, hardened bones to chalky grey
aching to dissolve, to be risen as perpetual surfs.
who knows the source of tears
not shy but bare!
Contributor Information
Florence Murry is the author of Last Run Before Sunset (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have appeared in Pinch, Atlanta Review, Slipstream Press, Off the Coast, Westchester Review, Black Fox Literary, and others. Florence lives in Southern California with her husband and two cats. Website: florencemurrywriter.com
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As a child, on interstate trips, Lewis LaCook thought the moon was following his family’s Econoline van. Upon reaching adulthood, he couldn’t tell whether the truth disappointed or relieved him, so he started writing things down. Some of these things looked like poems, and they may have appeared in journals like Anti-Heroin Chic, Suburban Witchcraft, Lost And Found Times, Otoliths, Unlikely Stories, Whiskey Tit, Lotus-eater, Synchronized Chaos, Argotist Online Poetry, Medusa’s Kitchen, Reapthrill, Exist Otherwise, and Epater, among others. In 2012, BlazeVOX published Beyond the Bother of Sunlight, a book-length collaboration with Sheila E. Murphy; previously, Anabasis published his book-length poem Cling. His collection My Kinship with the Lotus-eaters was published in 2022 by BlazeVOX. Lewis can often be found wandering the wilds of Western New York state with his wife Lindsay.
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Liz deBeer is a teacher and writer with Project Write Now, a writing cooperative based in New Jersey. Her latest flash has appeared in Switch, Lucky Jefferson, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Bending Genres, Every Day Fiction, Sad Girl Diaries, and others. She has written essays in various journals including Brevity Blog and New Jersey English Journal. She holds degrees from University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. Website: www.ldebeerwriter.com
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Cat Robinson is a Black poet & editor from the South. She is a believer of good chaos. Their work investigates how the experiences of the self & external life are reflected on & through the body.
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Kamakshi Lekshmanan holds an MA in Writing from the University of Essex, UK. Paperboats and Puliinji is her debut memoir, and her photo essays and poetry can be found in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Alluvian, Wild Roof Journal, The Bloom, The Hopper, Botany of Gaia: A nature inspired anthology, Quillkeepers Press, The Winged Moon, and Writerly Magazine.
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May 2025
Batch 086: 05/21/25
Melissa Reburiano
Dripping
My heart is a painter’s cup of water
in which your brush unleashed an indigo mushroom cloud each
time you swabbed the bottom to
start again. new stroke, same
bluescape; you emerge
colorless and wet.
Jessica Pulver
separation in ecuador
at 4 a.m. the neighborhood rooster entraps himself again,
clicking talons on the roof of my rented bedroom.
i lurch awake, alone beneath a purple blanket,
kids across town with overnight bags
in your sleek apartment with house plants
waiting to know if we’ll get divorced.
last night i decided for sure this was the case;
i wrote it, spoke it, believed my words . . .
but the rooster searches the edge of the building —
eyes the sidewalk below, trash cans
gaping, errant cats and bikes. he turns,
returns, toenails tap a hapless scramble,
then pause. unwilling to yield to a steep descent,
i understand this gathering of emptiness.
Carisa Coburn Pineda
Urgelles
“Los muebles de Urgelles,” she says, using their full name, a sofa, two chairs, velvety fabric. Not quite navy, not quite royal blue. “They are yours,” Tía adds, “when you want them,” but they are in her living room in Escazú. She may have reupholstered them by now. I don’t want them. I live in the U.S.; my home is full of things some wanted some I’m unsure about since my parents’ death. “But they’re Urgelles, son incomprables ahora,” she insists. It means little to me, Urgelles, a Costa Rican furniture company established in 1906; if you bought from there in the 70s it meant you were someone.
RW Mayer
Gift
Sitting at the dining room table
with a pencil, she sketched the
outline of a face, then long
hair cascading down on
both sides. At a slight angle
she drew in eyes and eyebrows.
Moving down deliberately, she put
in a nose and mouth, and finally
drew in my mustache and voluminous
beard. She looked at it long, occasionally
adding a light line here and there.
Then shyly, she pushed it toward me.
Lawrence Bridges
Hedge and Fence Move Intact
The forest of best years begins with an exception. This
magnet north of everything soft, school backpacks, recipes,
laptops, is the place where we all fall down into it, this gully.
I’m marching truth forward, then drop to elbows, dangling
and winded. When it’s dry, I climb out, set start time all
over, discount shifts, and go on with more or less. It’s time
not to look at the mountain, spurting gravity at you.
Contributor Information
Melissa Reburiano writes herself in and out of liminalities found between memory, olfactory nerves, and eavesdropping. Her work has been published in various collections, including The Berkeley Poetry Review, The Books They Gave Me (Simon and Schuster), LEON Literary Review, and others. She teaches history at an International Baccalaureate school in the South Bronx. You can find her on Instagram @melissarebstar.
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Jessica Pulver is a a therapist, wife, and mother living in Maine. In her free time, she tends a large garden, jumps in the cold ocean, and tries to find other ways to slow down. She has recently returned to the writing life after majoring in creative writing over twenty years ago at Swarthmore College. Her essays and poems have appeared in The Good Life Review, Waccamaw, Yalobusha Review, Griffel, Scapegoat Review, Literary Mama, The Examined Life, and Kaleidoscope. Her first chapbook, May You Step Forward, was published in 2024.
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Carisa Coburn Pineda is from Costa Rica and the United States. She received her undergraduate degree from Occidental College and her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland, College Park. She lives in Burke, VA with her husband and their children. She writes about language, culture, and loss.
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RW Mayer grew up in Southern Oregon and has been an educator in Oregon and Washington. He lives in Seattle, Washington where he reads and writes, and fiddles with the guitar. His poetry has appeared in The Write Launch, Untenured, The Closed Eye Open, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and others.
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Lawrence Bridges’ poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums (Red Hen Press, 2006), Flip Days (Red Hen Press, 2009), and Brownwood (Tupelo Press, 2016). You can find him on Instagram @larrybridges.
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