As a supplement to our main issue 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” a few times per month in between our full issues.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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