You Can Be Something Different Today You Say to Yourself Again

by Jeffrey Hermann

Gary Meulemans

Fantasy football gets me nowhere. I try the airports but the windows don’t open. Too many planes want to leave at the same time. They don’t want to wait in line. On the contrary, says my periodontal assistant, we need more life coaches. Every time I dig in the garden I think about a course I took in college. Science for humanities majors. We filled empty jelly jars with earth and the professor wept while explaining ecosystems. You can squeeze a human brain into the same container, she added, but you won’t see anything remarkable. Now you’re looking into a mirror. Lay down your weapons and kill an idea of yourself up close. Face to face. Stop practicing taxidermy. Stop writing short stories and start finding children trapped in wells. There are thousands. They are looking up at the sky. You must find them all. There’s time if you go now.

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Jeffrey Hermann’s work has appeared in Okay Donkey, Passages North, Heavy Feather, Electric Literature, and other publications. His first full-length collection of prose poetry and flash fiction will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2026. Though less publicized, he finds his work as a father and husband to be rewarding beyond measure.