bustling bee

I live with a beehive inside my head.
It’s been there since my birth.
What started as a pocket of hexagons punctured into my skull grew and grew by the year
Until it was a city, an empire, brimming with wings.

I live with a beehive inside my head
And I feel its presence by the day.
In soft hazy mornings the bees buzz,
hum,
their wings gentle feathers against my brain.

They make honey, my bees
It oozes down my throat
and pools in my stomach where it cements, like concrete.
And a few bees follow,
down, down, down
humming, humming, humming.
They bring the sound of summer atop their backs.
In the maze of my nervous system, they search
endlessly
for a golden sweet woven by their hands.
And at last when they find it,
they lie upon sugar that sticks to their fuzz
and sleep
and die.
What started as bees in my head
crawling across my brain
nestled in gaps, in cracks, in flesh
became bees within my blood,
within my stomach,
within my skin.
I try to vomit
but all I can taste is caramel
wedged between my teeth,
clogged deep into my throat.
I try to vomit,
but all that comes out is honey.

The bees are my friends
and the summer they bring is warm.
I tell myself that I can live with bees in my head,
in my feet,
in my heart.
And I can.
For the most part.
But occasionally they whir to life,
stirred by noise, bright lights, a threat I cannot fathom.
Their stingers pierce my organs.
And all I can see are yellow-black coats
as they storm.

When the moment is over
(a moment, a minute, an hour, I can no longer tell)
I breathe and feel buzzing.
There is never peace in my head
for bees never sleep
and so, neither do I,
kept awake by their toiling –
(buzz buzz buzz.)
At least some are dead.
A bee without a stinger is a bee without organs.
I feel them in my stomach.
A tangle of bodies,
of fading hums,
of paper-thin wings falling to dust.
I try not to be glad
But I am.

I live with a beehive inside my head.
Rows upon rows of honey-dripped hexagons puncture my brain.
They work day-in and day-out to keep me safe,
spinning silk strands of gold until it stuffs my nose
and leaks down my throat.
I love my bees
or at least, I think I do.
But sometimes I feel I would relish an emptiness,
a silence.
Honey never tasted good to me anyway.

^{Credits:
Code by Maruun
Poem by alee
background graphic by FlashPlex}