Hope is
a broken bullseye,
but I keep arrows
in my quiver anyway.
That bright target,
so near I can
almost touch it,
spins like
a neon kaleidoscope,
but I slide
further and further
from light.
Each backward step
takes me deep inside
my forest of self,
where the center
rests: motionless,
unruffled by dreams.
©2024 Leah Mueller All rights reserved.
Leah Mueller’s work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, The Spectacle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Leah appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions and was nominated for the 2024 edition. Her two newest books are The Failure of Photography (Garden Party Press, 2023) and Widow’s Fire (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). Website: http://www.leahmueller.org.