Poison Taking Form: A Poem | Thursday Verse No. 22

  Sometimes a line arrives long before its meaning does. I wrote this poem years ago, without much intention beyond following an unsettling image to its end. Looking back at it now, I find myself drawn less to the idea of poison itself, and more to the forms it chooses to wear: beauty, softness, charm, even familiarity. This remains one of the more unusual themes I’ve explored, which perhaps explains why it stayed with me for so long.

Poison Taking Form

Photograph by Natacha Panassol on Pexels.

If poison had a form it'd have hair as long as the Nile,

Wavy, raven locks hiding crocodiles,

If poison had a form it'd have eyes as deep as a black hole,

Blackness of gravity sucking your soul,

If poison had a form it'd have the sweetest smile,

Its sticky disease drenching you in sugar coated lies,

If poison had a form it'd have nails as fine as pins,

Tickling you with needle-prick pains,

If poison had a form it'd have cotton like bosom,

Yielding, till its icicle heart infests your blood with blue venom,

If poison had a form it would be a human,

If poison had a form,

It would be me!

- Mercy Rebonica