The Laws of Melittology by Kaydence Rice

Listening to the whistle of the wind

I whispered to you every single piece

of honey I had left on my tongue. I think

I saw it, still in your ear. Can you still feel

it stick to drums and drip down your neck

like sweat? The drone you named died

last night. You don’t seem to know

if what I said was true, if what I said

was true then why are you still here? I

watched a drone dance for the queen

this morning. She ate him. It’s only

a matter of time until the honeycomb

rots. I’ll wait here until it reaches the

bottom. I’ll never understand how

you could forget how to dance. Is it

because you didn’t want to learn in the

first place? Honey drips down the trees

and onto the dying grass. Why haven’t

you left yet? What happened to thinking

I wanted you gone? Bees buzz too loudly

to deserve to be called flies. Bees

buzz too loudly to deserve to be anything

at all. The only good quality of a bee is the

fact that their sting is gentler than a wasp’s.

And the only good quality of a wasp is that

it doesn’t buzz as loudly as bees and perhaps

that means that wasps are flies. And perhaps

that means that you didn’t hear me the first time.