the sting in our skin

i once read that bees die when they sting.
they don’t do it out of malice—
they do it because they must.
it’s instinct, not intent.
a quiet violence written into the soft folds of their being.
and somehow, that made sense to me.
more sense than it should’ve.
maybe that’s what i’ve been trying to say without ever saying it—
that there’s a sting in me, too.
it’s not always what i choose, but what happens when I’m pushed,
when everything inside me builds up to the point of breaking,
and the sting is the only way out.

we talk about choice a lot.
like everything we do is conscious, crafted, calculated.
but what if some of it is written in the blueprint?
what if we aren’t choosing—
we’re just unfolding.
what if the things we regret weren’t mistakes at all, but simply moments we had no control over?
i’ve hurt people i love.
not because i wanted to, but because something deep inside me made it happen.
i’ve snapped at the ones closest to me for no good reason.
watched myself say things i didn’t mean,
felt the words leave my mouth like glass shattering in the air.
afterwards, there’s guilt,
but never the surprise.
because somewhere, i knew—
that sting was already waiting.
it was there, under my skin, a part of me, pulling at my nerves.
and i didn’t pull it—
it pulled me.

some of us are wired with teeth under our tongues.
some carry silence like a loaded gun.
some walk through life trying not to trigger what’s been placed inside them,
while others don’t even know they’ve already gone off.
and i wonder, sometimes, how many of us are quietly dying inside—
not from the hurt we cause,
but from the things we never asked for,
things buried deep enough that we don’t know they exist,
until they rise up and make us act.

maybe we’re not broken.
maybe we’re just built.
and maybe what we call damage
is just a different kind of design—
a kind of design that no one told us about.
we were supposed to be soft.
we were supposed to be kind.
forgiving.
but no one tells bees to stop stinging.
no one asks a flame to stop burning.
no one warns you about the things inside you that wait to break free.

we’re taught that nature is sacred,
but we forget that we are part of it, too.
so when we flinch before we fight,
when we cry after we hurt someone,
that’s not regret.
that’s recognition.
recognizing that we are not just the bloom, but the blade as well.
that we are a balance of both—
we are the tenderness and the sharpness, the light and the shadow.
and that’s the truth that sits heavy on my chest,
the one i don’t say out loud:
we’re not always choosing.
sometimes, we’re just revealing
what was buried beneath the skin all along.
like bees,
we sting because we have to.
even when it hurts us more than it hurts them.
even when we wish we didn’t.
even when we know it’ll be the thing
that undoes us in the end.

because maybe the sting
is the most honest part of us.