We find pieces of ourselves in fragments of each other.
The Muse Jar began as an experiment: strangers on Substack handed poet Devyn Leighton their unfinished stories-a whispered regret, a wish, a confession-and asked her to turn it into a poem.
What came back is this collection: over 30 poems that move through chronic illness and the guilt of being "too much" to carry, the quiet devastation of a parent you no longer recognize, the exhausting work of staying alive on ordinary days, immigrant homesickness for a country that never fully welcomed you home, inherited family trauma written into the body, and the strange, ferocious joy of choosing to keep going anyway.
Equal parts elegy and love letter, The Muse Jar doesn't ask its readers to look away from pain-it asks them to notice the flower growing in the crack, the light on the garbage bin lid, the peach juice running down their wrist. It's a book for the chronically tired, the quietly grieving, the recently healed, and anyone still deciding whether they belong. Spoiler alert: You belong here, too.
"I took what I was given and tried to give it back changed, but not unrecognizable. A photograph developed in different light." -Devyn Leighton
In this collection:

• Poems built from real, reader-submitted stories and confessions
• Themes of chronic illness, grief, found family, love, girlhood, and healing
• A blessing from the muse jar, for readers who made it to the last page