When It Seems Like Nothing Is Happening a Lot Is Happening
I’m planning a big party. My friend has no idea. She hates her job and cries on the weekends about it. We tell her she can do better. We tell each other lies all the time. The party will be drinks and dinner. When it gets late someone might share their pills or edibles. We all want to relax. We all want to go to Sardinia next spring. We all want water that shade of blue. We want to be drunk at midnight in paradise. We want to meet someone. We want to sleep with someone. We want to make ourselves think they made us feel good. We want to make ourselves feel good. We want to open our mouths. We want to yell out across a chasm. We want to steal something small. We want to snap something in half. We want to hold someone captive only so we can explain ourselves clearly. We want to desire things undesirable. We want to let things rot that want to rot. We want to foam at the mouth. We want to murder tyrants. We want to claw our way back. We want to reject payments and refund nothing. We want to find a vein. We want to check for a pulse. We want to plan a funeral in our heads. We want to start over in a place nobody knows us. We want to imagine that this new place is home. When we realize we are not home we want to remember that when we leave we must bring everything home with us. Even our bodies. But back to the party. My friend is not expecting anything. But a lot is happening.
We Died But Not Before We Fell In Love
We died but not before we felt a flutter in our stomachs. We died but not before we spoke our first words to each other. We died but not before we became obsessed with each other’s mouths. We died but not before we became obsessed with each other’s dreams. We died but not before we dreamed of piercing the boundary. We died but not before we found ourselves alone together. We died but it was late and it was quiet between us. We died but we drew close together. We died but you looked at me. We died but there was something there I wanted. We died but you wanted something too. We died but not before the wall collapsed between us. We died. They found us that way. They died too. They died but not before some fell in love and some did not. They found them that way.
Unimaginable Powers
When I asked the tailor if she could have the pants ready by Tuesday she told me she works in a dying business. When I came back on Tuesday her husband didn’t mention that. Just smiled and gave me the pants. Thank you so much I said. I didn’t mention that I also work in a dying business. Or a changing business. It’s hard to tell. It can seem like everything is dying because of change. These pants have a lifespan of maybe 10 years. I bought a guitar a few years ago but I never play it. There’s probably a song in the guitar that’s also dying. Disappearing a little every day. And then everything else. I can’t talk about lifespans lately without my chest swelling and the pressure of tears behind my eyes. On a walk this morning I saw a large white box on the curb next to someone’s garbage cans. It had beautiful drawings of birds all over it and in a delicate script on one side it said “Box of Birds.” I slowed down next to the box. I couldn’t help myself. I bent down and took hold of the lid. You’d think someone who bought such a thing or received such a thing would have been more careful, more thorough. But when I lifted the lid, what had been left inside saw the sky and took to it.
Jeffrey Hermann’s work has appeared in Okay Donkey, Electric Lit, Heavy Feather, Passages North, and other publications. His first full-length collection of prose poetry and flash fiction will be published by ELJ Editions in 2026. Though less publicized, he finds his work as a father and husband to be rewarding beyond measure.
The Disappointed Housewife 