Antisocial Media
By Leah Mueller
It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!
You’re jealous of everyone,
even when they’re doing things
you don’t want to do,
because they’re not sitting
at home, feeling jealous of you.
In photos, everyone poses
in glittery frames, grinning
into the kaleidoscope.
At home, the dishes pile up
in the sink, and creditors
won’t stop calling.
Don’t you want to jump
into a car and keep driving,
over mountains and rivers
all the way across
the Atlantic, to a place where
nobody knows your name?
Can anyone blame you
for trying to disappear?
You finally hear
what your voice sounds like,
strong and quiet as trees.
Then one day, you
have a sudden urge
to switch on the computer,
and the whole goddamn thing
starts all over again.
Leah Mueller lives in Bisbee, Arizona. She is the author of ten prose and poetry books. Her new book, The Destruction of Angels (Anxiety Press) was published in October 2022. Leah's work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and elsewhere. She is a 2023 nominee for both Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. Her flash piece, "Land of Eternal Thirst" appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions.
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