Hive mentality
by Jenni Mazaraki

It is a singular suffering, your kind of suffering.

No one will understand. It is no wildfire tearing

through villages. No lava across the valley.

Nothing has been lost for the collective. Except,

in other houses across the suburbs, in rooms sheeted

with thin plasterboard and encased in brick veneer,

others are experiencing their singular suffering.

Each of us, in our little hives, thinking

there are no other bees with the same problem.

Jenni Mazaraki is a writer living on Wurundjeri land (Melbourne). Her short story collection I’ll Hold You was highly commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript 2020. Her work has been published in the Australian Poetry Journal, The Suburban Review and Empty House Press. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing.