Member-only story
Poetry
Where Poison Pools
Poem
How does the poison find the vein?
What pulse draws it near,
what fevered current whispers through bone,
calling like to like in the marrow’s dark chambers?
What silent current pulls one rot toward another,
like rust spreading through iron,
like mold creeping through damp walls,
seeking the cracks in the stone of our better nature?
How does the wicked know its own hunger?
Is it the way their eyes linger, a heartbeat too long,
the way their lips snarl at the corners,
the way their fingers flex with anticipation of control?
Do they sense each other’s irreverence,
that slow, uncoiling tension,
like a bowstring drawn back but never released,
waiting for the first shudder of violence to set it all in motion?
How did one mind, warped and seething,
find so many willing hands to feed its fire?
Did they find each other in the low, grim corners,
over clinking glasses and whispered threats,
or simply in the steady cadence of marching boots?
