How to Love Like a Honeybee

My mother loves me like a honeybee. 

When a honeybee raises you, your hornet-like tendencies to react to the premonition of a threat with a full assault disintegrate like an ancient relic touched by a Category 5 storm. 

Our shared trait to produce honey from our all elements cemented my transformation into her wing span inevitable. 

What does not fit molds others to its shape. She was my sculptor with a green-heart. The roots that shot from my cracked clay produced floral arrangements in places I assumed were ungrowable.

My mother loves everyone else like a honeybee. 

In the way, it dies when it lashes out and leaves a thorn in your side to remind you of its departure. When July rain wets her wings, she seeks shelter without a hint of shame. Too many relied on her ability to fly for her to risk a nose dive. 

The colony came above the adoration that comes from being a martyr. She was better than me in that way. She picked petals with her eyes shut, and in fields carpeted with carnations painted with strokes of cardinal and bruise and alstroemeria neighboring shrubs and weeds. 

After all, nectar was nectar. 

My mother loves herself like a wasp.  

When a stinger pierces well past her first layer of skin, her finger springs back into a hook to provide a resting nook for the next attacker. I tried to squash the next one before it landed and she sucked her teeth at me, saying with a voice, like honeysuckle between the teeth, "Don't avoid the stings. That is inevitable. Besides, that is how honey is made."

and I let it sting her. 

Flash Issue 10