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Writer's pictureLammergeier Staff

Mother Nature | Adrianna Gordey



Once upon a time


Honey comb veined wings beat over and 

under grass blade corridors, fallen leaf 


warriors’ whose fingers tore her black and 

yellow hair. Pollen and pregnancy weighed 


on her corbiculae, food for the hive’s grubs, 

the baby who would have her acorn shaped 


eyes with irises like the melting sun. My mother’s 

thumb brushes across my cheek, streaking it with love.


Sweat whispers down her round face, tickling 

her with fear; she can feel the beewolf drawing near.


Her antennae wince at the smell of nectar dripping

below the wolf’s latticed eyes, remnants of the 


petaled battleground the mothers met on. I poke the

freckles of perfume blooming on mother’s chest.


The air stirs above her, the hot soup of death

boiling in her abdomen as the beewolf’s lemon


legs snatch her from flight. Delight engrosses the

huntress as she flips her prey over. The knife, her 


stinger, finds home in a womb that isn’t her own,

a tomb that will hold the remains of the bee’s baby


and feed the wolf’s. One mother’s corpse becomes

the other’s crib, larvae using her thorax as its bib. 


My mother’s teeth glitter, knife-like and nurturing,

As her lips punctuate a goodnight kiss on my forehead.


And the wolves live happily ever after. 





Adrianna Gordey is a writer and undergraduate student pursuing a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing at Kansas State University. She has written articles for Society19 and ComicsVerse, ranging from advice on how to decorate a dorm room to the mortality of watching AMC's The Walking Dead. Adrianna lives in Manhattan, KS -- the little Apple -- where she works as a Resident Advisor and Teaching Assistant. 


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