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.
The lover describes himself as a train in winter
I too generate heat when I run
and squeak when I stop.
I grow old, I grow old
I trail baggage cars behind me
but grinding iron pumps away underneath
still proof against the cold.
Steam puffs off me as I sniff
at the night air and gold
moonlust spills over me.
I’m passion-coaled.
Morning Market
stretch with me towards first life spoon
steams full of oatmeal and black coffee bitter
burn tongue through cool season’s shutters open
on local rooster’s roust up rocking group of
rowdy schoolboys popping with wooden slingshots lizards
from trees knocking motorcycle’s sidecar over-
flowing with fruit and veg bends and
sputters to morning market
Tea Time
Have you ever flipped
your insides out to
examine the tea leaves
stuck in your small intestine?
Hovering over
yourself with a cracked
magnifying glass.
Discovering
her curse.
Earthmouth
It was days before the wilderness I’d been
seeking caught up with me. Swirls of birds burst
from the crust of the earth,
tore at my ankles, pinwheeling my run,
knocking me in-
to a teeming unconsciousness.
I rose in the murmur of foliage,
fistfuls of violet and orange gripping my
belly, fleshing my bones in hunger for
sun, splitting into acres
of bamboo, calling me to climb
into siphoning heights.
These Tempests
I’m wondering how hard this tempest is
howling, how hard this rain is hitting the soil,
and if your beloved pansies—
that you gently remarked have faces
will survive this storm that I am unable to witness.
I only hear the harsh droplets
pitter-patter on top of the
building while in the confines of this isolated room.
In the midst of my inner tempest, oh
I still think of you lovingly.
C J Brady is a poet and MFA student at ODU, who was born and raised in Los Angeles. She has been published in Zaum, Mantis, Touchstone, The Lamp, and more. She enjoys many types of media and has practiced music and film production; she has been awarded a bronze medal from the International Association of Audio Engineers.
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James Fleet Underwood writes poems rooted in place, season, and daily life. His work explores quiet relationships with the natural world and the small rituals that shape human presence within it. X: @jamesfleetpoems Substack: jamesfleetpoems.substack.com
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Brittany Richter is a queer poet, veteran, and former educator from Mississippi whose work explores the intersections of love, detachment, survival, and the politics of the body. Her writing blends confessional intimacy with structural precision, often examining how emotional labor, queerness, and power are negotiated in everyday rituals. When she writes, she writes for the silenced and the versions of herself still learning how to speak.
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jms xuange writes from the thresholds between body, voice, and dissolution. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Rogue Agent, Corporeal, and Midway Journal.
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Sophia Falco is an award-winning poet, and the author of four poetry books: If My Hands Were Birds: A Poem (2024), Chronicles of Cosmic Chaos: In The Fourth Dimension (2023), Farewell Clay Dove (2021), and The Immortal Sunflower (2019) all published by UnCollected Press. Now they are in a Master of Fine Arts Program.
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Lines conjured by backlight
whispered as they come so low
only the incantor can discern meaning
in shallow breath as if
there could be a second body in the room
lying at the edge of the unmade bed
in that half the whisperer leaves to his back
as he dreams
Amphibious
Look! he spluttered, standing up.
I can’t help you
if you’re a fool about this.
The bee he’d saved from Poseidon
thrashed back into the pool;
the dragonfly dive-bombing beside them,
showing off.
I do not like small towns
I do not like small towns.
Why? Stoop down a little. Look through the keyhole.
I spy with my little eye. A vase on its side. Perilously close to the edge. Drip, drip. Like it is weeping. Maybe it is.
She is standing. Her diaphanous nightdress floating around her, casting aspersions on her dignity. Her face frozen in a grimace. Nobody to assuage her distress. Look how she moves. Delicately. Like she is going to fracture into a thousand pieces. She has many times before. The faint lines visible from where she has pieced herself back together time after time.
Making her way to somewhere. Anywhere. Away.
bridge
river
bridge
river
river
memoir
lived in jug
jug don’t know
Before Dawn
I traverse the garden
in the early hours,
dew-soaked grass glistening —
Tingling coolly
beneath my bare feet.
Moonlight sparkles
across a glass-like estuary —
A dark pool
at the garden’s edge,
reflecting the great pine’s
lacy black boughs.
They have lived
several lifetimes before mine,
and will remain
long after I go.
Steaming tea rests
between my palms,
warmth seeping
into my soul.
Beneath the pine canopy,
memories shimmer —
Shooting stars tangled in roots
that drink from the galaxy itself.
I breathe in its resinous, herbal scent,
its ancient shadow moving through me,
reminding me of where I began —
Deepest, darkest, wildest, most mystical Mother Nature.
Fletch Fletcher is a poet, a science teacher, a brother, and a bunch of other random things that may or may not help you understand him. He is grateful to have worked with and learned from amazing poets while getting an MFA in Poetry at Drew University. Fletcher’s collections include Existing Science (Assure Press, 2021) and Confessional (Finishing Line Press, 2024).
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Ping Yi writes poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. After a three-decade detour in public service, he resumed his lifelong interest in speculative, humor and travel writing. His work has appeared in Orbis (nominated for 2025 Forward Prize), Litro (Editor’s Pick), The Stony Thursday Book, London Grip, Meniscus, La Piccioletta Barca, Harbor Review, Vita Poetica, and Eclectica. New work is forthcoming in The High Window and The Bangalore Review. Ping Yi lives in Singapore with his spouse and their son.
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Sarah Senft is new to writing fiction but has long carried love of words and storytelling. A mother and a doctor, she balances her busy life with a growing passion for creative writing.
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Sean G. Meggeson lives in Toronto, where he works in as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with his dog, Tao. He has been published in Antiphony, aswirl, Die Leere Mitte, Ice Floe, The Queen’s Quarterly, The Trinity Review, and others. He won the League of Canadian Poet’s Spoken Word Award in 2024. Meggeson has published three chapbooks, Cosmic Crasher (Buttonhook, 2024), ta o/j, and soma synthesis (both from lippykookpoetry, 2025). Forthcoming: a chapter on poetic symbolism and its use in clinical practice in Paul Ricoeur’s Impact on Contemporary Psychoanalysis: From Analysis to Synthesis (Lexington Books, 2025) and j: poems (primitive press, 2026).
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Ingrid Brown is a figurative artist and writer, frequently guided by sensory detail, imagination, light and texture. Her work encourages slow attention and emotional resonance, reflecting her ongoing exploration of how fleeting moments and moods can be translated through her practice into forms that carry narrative weight and psychological depth. Ingrid creates images in paint and words that invite recognition and connection, inspiring viewers to pause and sense balance in states of change, and notice our intrinsic bond with Mother Nature. Website: art.ingridbrown.co.uk / Instagram: @ingridbrown_art
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denial
“the key,” she says, “is denial.”
smiles, knowing.
standing together, holding hands
room aflame
smoke circling
lungs collapsing
we cackle
and crackle.
Archeologist’s Note
Chockfull of chalk chunks
and flint, Winchester’s soil
is bones’ camouflage.
The Playground Closes at Dusk
When the sun goes
to sleep I no longer
feel responsible.
Chase the moon as
my parents drive
the car anywhere.
Return to a child when
I say, “The moon is following us!”
And I believe it.
Obsession
If her stomach was in knots, she’d stitch into the night. Politics, storms, grief; what else could Gia do? Continental, basketweave, crisscross needlepoint. She’d sit in her bedroom, imagining the whole city was asleep, and pull the needle up and down through the canvas mesh. The city breathing in rhythm with her stitching. Tonight, as the hours passed, Gia knew she was unraveling. Twisted thread, puckered stitches, uneven tension! But she pressed on. How many squares could she finish before the sun rose? What was the reward? The promise of a partially finished task, a new day, and a grid of needlepoint flowers.
Sombre September Sky
See, there are no sombre September skies.
Pillowy, ponderous, cumulus clouds
skitter and scatter cerulean blues,
as they make a final foray coastwise
before sober winter, after summer crowds.
Look, here – how nimbostratus grey accrues
shades, so soft rain may fall upon ploughed fields.
September storms do not foreshadow shrouds,
mere child’s temper, which in the end strews
greys, to skittish, sunshine laughter. Skies yield
to late summer sun, and the joy it imbues.
Alexis Rhodes is a queer, polyamorous poet, playwright, performer, and strategist based in North Carolina. Alexis has been published in Action, Spectacle, Blood+Honey, Wayfarer Magazine, and more. She has completed five manuscripts and is submitting to presses. Alexis lives with her husband, two kids, and a hedgehog named Hedge. Instagram: @alexis_writes_things
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Rosemary Herbert is a writer whose work spans genres. Inspired by her work on a fourth-century, Roman-era archeological dig in Winchester, England, her poetry chapbook, Sisters in Time, will be published by Finishing Line Press in June 2026. She contributed poems to Radar Poetry, GRIFFEL, Remembering William Butler Yeats (Moonstone Arts Center), The Last Milkweed: An Autumnal Anthology of Poetry (Tupelo Press), and more. Her interviews can be found in Harvard Review and The Paris Review. Her eight books include Edgar Award-nominated The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing. She lives in Akron, Ohio. Website: rosemaryherbert.com
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Alexis Needham is a poet from Eden, NY. She has a B.A. in Writing, Literary Studies Minor, and Technical Writing Certificate from Buffalo State University where she served as Editor for the university’s student-run and printed literary journal, Portrait Magazine (Spring 2025). She has also served as a reader for Elm Leaves Journal, and has poetry forthcoming in Scapegoat Review‘s Spring 2026 issue.
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Liz Paley lives in Concord, MA where she teaches preschool. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, Ruminate Magazine, and the Jewish Writing Project. She was a finalist in Ruminate Magazine’s 2021 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. She has two grown daughters and loves to needlepoint.
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Hetta Jones is a barrister working in London, UK. She lives in rural Lincolnshire, the landscape of which is a constant presence in her work. Her poems seeks to marry the mundane to the esoteric and link her experiences to the physical world around her. Her professional enjoyment of language has the opportunity to overflow into exuberance in her poetry (sadly not an option in her day job), an opportunity of which she takes full advantage. Published work has been included in Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, Beyond Words Magazine, and in the Ballads of Medieval Devotion anthology. She has four horses, three children, two dogs, one husband (just about!) and not a lot of time.
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