-This is my entry for Weekly Wattpad Contests #56.-

Holes, dozens of them, hundreds of them.

Insecurities, doubts, fears, hopes that I can't acknowledge.

Hundreds of holes, all covered behind a curtain of honey

     (you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar[1])

to glue them all together, to hide them from the outside.

⬡

Between each hole, a thin wall to separate one cell from another, to keep my fears separate and distinct and isolated

     (too much self-centered attitude, you see, brings, you see, isolation[2])

and independent. For if they were all mashed together, they'd become muddled and blurry and maybe I wouldn't know precisely what to fear or where to doubt. But this way, they're clear to me, familiar in a way that is at once both reassuring and not.

⬡

I don't like looking at the holes. Even with the honey smothering them, I still know they're there, so I have to stay busy

     (busy as a bee[3])

to keep my mind focused elsewhere. I try to fill the holes. Not pretty enough? Makeup. Not smart enough? Books. Not friendly enough? Smile.

But the makeup washes off and the books end and the smile can't stay forever, can it?

My face is beginning to hurt.

⬡

What happens to beehives in the winter?

Does the honey freeze over, sealing away the insecurities and the doubts and the fears and the hopes?

Or do the bees eat away at the honey slowly

     (slipping — is crashe's law —[4])

revealing all that they had once hidden?

⬡

[1] Common idiom
[2] Dalai Lama
[3] Common idiom
[4] Emily Dickenson