There is a wasps nest in my attic, I thought, as I lay in bed next to you, ignoring the itch in my veins. Her voice played in my ears over and over.

She, like me, was always itching, shivering, hungering for the bliss of absorption into something so much greater than herself. Scratching at the holes in her arms and devouring men whole, barefoot, red-clad, shambling.

I was not her. I itched. I shook. I hungered. I allowed men to eat me whole and believed it would unlock some higher purpose, or ecstacy. I did not have the glory of a thousand live, wriggling things. I mothered no offspring, though the dirt in my blood multiplied itself tenfold and crippled me, contaminating.

I lay awake, entwined with that which told me I was wretched, yet deserving all the same. I traced the winding web of black mould and mycelium and let it inhabit me.

There was no wasps nest in my attic.

But I buzzed all the same.