This isn’t your kind of toxic.
This isn’t foxglove in my tea,
It’s not cyanide in my food.
Not a bottle designated to kill me,
A skull on the side for the mood.

This isn’t your kind of toxic.
This isn’t thirty times enough to kill a man,
This isn’t writhing on the tile floor.
This isn’t the turning point of an evil plan,
And it’s not what’ll rot me to the core.

This toxic is slow.
Day by day, dose by dose,
Take your meds and keep them close.
Clog your throat week by week,
Until fatigue sets in and bones grow weak.

This isn’t arsenic,
It’s a healthy dose of seeds
From a lotus eater’s isle,
It’s where you just start to give up,
And feed them back a smile.
I take every dose with a smile,

Saying someday it’ll stop.
I leave to survey every mile,
For the day my restraint pops.

This kind of toxic isn’t deadly.
Yet.
This kind of hurt won’t kill.
Yet.
So I smile, and turn, and take my pills,
Because this kind of hurt won’t kill.