It’s me. I’m the one who killed the bees.  

Not by poison or neglect. Not through greed or flame. I was simply here when the  hum thinned, and I stayed long enough for silence to take root. That was all it asked of  me.  

They rose one dawn too few. Their wings slowed, their patterns unraveled. The air  forgot their weight; the flowers opened to nothing. The earth swallowed their small gold  bodies without protest, as if it had been waiting.  

Now they are dying everywhere. Scientists count and disagree. Beekeepers kneel  beside quiet hives. Poets light candles. Children hold jars to their ears, listening for the  hum that held the world together. The fields are wide and empty, and the sky feels  unfinished.  

It’s me. I am not a villain or a savior. I am the pause between pulses, the stillness  that comes when breath is spent. I did not mean to end their song, but I stood where the  echo was supposed to be, and the sound could not pass through.  

The world performs its imitation. Machines buzz. Factories sweeten the air with  chemical honey. Sermons praise the future. Still, the absence hums beneath it all, a low  vibration of what was.  

It’s me. I was here when their story ended, and I am here now that the quiet has  settled. I am not grief, or guilt, or god, only the shape left behind when creation exhales.  

I am the breaker of their rhythm, the witness who became the void, the Shiva of  bees.  

It’s me.