Leah Mueller
Leah Mueller
Leah Mueller is a Tulsa-based poet and prose writer. Her work is published in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Does It Have Pockets, Outlook Springs, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has received several nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. One of her short stories 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
Still Life with a Spiral Lollipop
too heavy a weight stick grasped in your hand teeth bared for the camera just another hour then you can have some ice cream because you’re such a good girl you know how to sit still but you only want flight lifting above the face sea the teeth are in rows the picket fence teeth the eyes like potatoes dull and brown eyes that can’t see the sun don’t allow yourself to peer into the pinhole there is nothing inside the clock leaps and moans you hold the lollipop the swirl like the inside of your head and that is the only way your parents can love you your grandmother can say well you’re such a good girl look how nicely you sit still look how neat your clothing is you’re a little lady and ladies need to know it’s a man’s world so they must stay tidy not ask too many questions always have dinner ready and when you hear your husband’s footfall the opening of the mechanical garage door then for god’s sake fix him a cocktail and make one for yourself as well the lollipop gets heavy when you hold it in the air for too long but you can’t put it down because you’re a good girl and good girls do what the grownups tell them the same grownups who cry in their beds at night the same grownups who won’t come when you cry in your bed at night when you think your bedroom is on fire and maybe it really is on fire maybe it has always been on fire maybe the whole world is on fire and you are about to burst into flames you will burst into flames if you have to sit here for another minute but you don’t burst into flames you just smile as the photographer says what a good girl how nicely you smile how well you sit still stay a little longer and we’ll take some more photos for the paper you want to be in the paper don’t you every little girl wants her picture in the paper and you are so pretty you will be the loveliest girl in the Chicago Sun-Times and everyone will say who is that girl in the fifty-dollar coat with the fifty-dollar smile and the lollipop that turns like a merry-go-round and you will forget that your parents don’t really love you your daddy moved away and your stepdad doesn’t come when you scream or he makes you scream again and again don’t scream now or no one will like you and you won’t have your photo in the fashion pages every girl wants to be in the fashion pages and you don’t want to be a bad girl do you or worse yet an ugly one okay just one more photo smile larger show some teeth but not too many teeth you don’t want to look angry do you the best thing about being a girl is that you can smile and get anything you want
self portrait as a mouse
the tiny mouse inside your mother waiting for permission to emerge hiding with tail wrapped around itself like a cord of noodles you are that mouse listening for your mother’s breath her exhalation the water’s release and then the world with its brightness the neon restaurants where you want to eat everything on the menu the signs and the jukebox music and the little tray filled with cakes you can pick any one you want but just one because you are already so full and you don’t take more than your share without permission in the afternoon you and your mother buy two kinds of peanuts squirrel peanuts and human peanuts both raw and salted like the chicago air and you wander into the garden filled with tall oak trees the squirrels come right up to you but your mother says they have rabies don’t let them come too close if you have rabies you need to go to the hospital and get shots for years and years and even then you might never recover like you never recover from any of it being born at an inconvenient time only partly formed like a rodent without a tail like a candle without a wick like a neon sign with half its letters burned out but you love downtown the rush of the el as it shrieks around the curve the santas in a row with their cowbells and metal buckets and the blast of wind against your teeth you never know what to say so you just keep talking and the grownups at the next table compliment your parents say your daughter is so well behaved she is so articulate and charming and you want to be articulate and you want to be charming but you hate it when people look at you for too long eat your dinner your mother says don’t let it get cold or it will go to waste and so many children won’t be able to eat tonight so you eat it all your dinner every bit of it and then it’s time to go home and curl up in your burrow inside your droll little cage without bars