ENDLESS COMBAT

When will we learn to
leave each other alone?

That other body is not a threat.
The threat lies inside your own body.

Lost on the road, half a mile
from home, you maneuver in circles, 
steering your rotation. The straight line
promises safety, yet never delivers.

When there is panic, people
jump to the other side of the fence.
It must be better there than here,

a brief refuge from the flesh. One cage
leads to another. You can no longer
remember where you started.

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. Her fourteenth book, Stealing Buddha, was published by Anxiety Press in 2024. Website: www.leahmueller.org.