The Bee Poem

Did you know there are more than 20,000 known species of bees, but only 5 percent are social bees? Only 5 percent allow you to get to know them. They’re minding their business, building their nests, and you interrupt their day to tell them, “You’re not like other bees,” because to you that’s such a compliment. Like, I know I’m not like the other bees, and none of the other bees are like me. 20,000 species, 3.9 billion bees, none of the other bees are like each other. See, all the bees are unique; don’t try and pit me against my fellow bee sisters. Did you know that not all bees have a stinger? But in the patriarchal society—I mean, the "all-encompassing equality-promoting human society"—all the bees are regarded as dangerous. You're taught to swat them on sight, to keep them in line. They are only as useful as their service to you. February 4th, another bee was hit right out of the sky. It survived and thought it should report it but stopped when the cop asked what it was wearing. Yeah, with those bright yellow stripes it was definitely asking for it. On August 24th, 2019, an innocent bee was swatted to the ground at the post office. When asked why, you say it’s what you were taught: all bees sting and you were acting on instinct. The bee provoked you with its buzzing. You couldn’t help it so you chose to hit it. But that was a Carpenter bee and in case you don’t know, Carpenter bees are harm-free; they don’t even have a stinger. But it doesn’t matter. You say good riddance because it was noisy anyway, and it needed to be put in its place. It’s only as important as the beauty on its face. It refused to acknowledge you, it had no right to fly away, how dare it not smile and thank you for being kind? How dare it say no, dare to speak up against you? It had no right to. Next time the bee thinks to speak, it’ll remember the hit. It needs to learn the patriarchal hierarchy. You say it couldn’t even produce honey. Like that makes its life any less valuable. Like not producing honey makes it any less of a bee. Like if it produced honey you were entitled to even get any. Like why are we talking about honey, that’s the bee’s business, you see? You see how honey can be a metaphor for so many things? You see how I have to use a metaphor to discuss these things? I want to write society as the men and women as the bees. But wouldn’t that be humanizing a male society and animalizing the female victim? Haven’t we seen enough of that already?