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By: Tommy Danger Kraken Innit
Chapter 1: Exposure
It’s hard to know when you might get exposed to radiation
And then on top of that, get poisoned by it
I should probably define the term
It’s important to understand what’s about to happen to you
But first, my credentials, Real Great and Big Ones
Because I am an expert to all things radiation poisoning
I’m from laboratory gunk and wildlife cold
And I’ve been put in a future where there’s years of experience into being exposed
I know more than anyone ever could about being poisoned
I haven’t stopped being sick of it since I got here
So, let’s define
RADIATION POISONING: To radiate, to poison
To spread so gauntly, so thinly, so deeply
To ruin the things around you, irrepably, permanently
To be the object of attack, to be tortured slowly
To never know when you will die
To have ruined and to be ruined of a sick and silent punishment
RADIATION POISONING is to be pushed full of expectations
On the topics of life and death, good and evil, deserving and not deserving of
You are to live Tommy, you are to die Tommy, you can’t do either Tommy
Expectations of which burn from chest to artery to hidden and internal bleeding
To heave forward, to be scrawled over the edge
Wondering, when the poisoning will take you
And you can fall, fall, fall into freedom from it
Chapter 2: Symptoms
Now that you understand what it is
What does it feel like?
How do you feel when poisoned
I can tell you it’s fucking awful, fucking shit, fucking dumb
A burning that doesn’t stop even when you stop
The earliest sign is the emptiness
A hollowing of the cage
From rib gristle to heart sinew to lung viscera
It feels like you’re never going to breathe in home again
Hopelessless will be the lie you’ll tell yourself
As the sickness infests every place you step foot in
It feels like turning houses into fortresses
Livelihood into vault, skin into burn
Desperation into quarries
Like your mind is on fire
Being beaten to death by the same person
Over and over again
It feels like you’re the ruin of the world
Ground zero, to a reality where everyone wants you to die
That you were the cause of where it all went wrong
Because you won’t become their hero
And you deny being their villain
You’ll feel deeply selfish and clam up, hoping to just stop fucking talking
As if you can clot off your throat vessel from radiating any want
Chapter 3: Treatment & prognosis
What is the cure, you ask?
Can one stop being poison once poisoned?
Can one stop radiating once radiated?
I don’t know, I really really don’t, do I look like a fucking doctor?
The cure hasn’t been found yet, supportive care is the best way to get over it
Because that’s what you’ll have to do, good fucking luck to you, get over it
I know that I’m trying
Sat against worn and weather
Eyes trained forward on tomorrow
And I’ve stopped trying to have in order not to get sicker
To have love, hope, home, safety, and value
I simply try to breathe in the existence
RADIATION POISONING isn’t a death sentence
You’re still alive, just chronically infested
To be poisoned, it means a lot going forward for you
It means things will be Different
Lots of things you’ll have to scribble down and accept
One thing realizing that the real silent killer isn’t the exposure
But the consequences, of not accepting it
People are going to make you have to accept it
So, let’s redefine, figure it out together, so you can accept it
More than I do, I guess
RADIATION POISONING: To live with the consequences of wanting to be alive
It means being far from the blast zone
In the way they’ll stand on hallowed ground
A tower billowing over them, like a sunken shadow burnt into the light
Obscured by their fear of what it means to Acknowledge
It means being far from heroism
Even when you’re told to wither away
And collapse bloody in the roar of it
It means having nothing and wanting nothing
Because there will be Consequences
It means wobbling right before what could’ve been your next grave
Trotting through the remains with the precision of a warhead
As the Killer stares, contemplating how you could’ve lived
It means the only way of Living
Is realizing that the source of the radiation is all that’s around you
And as you grow sick with the poison you can’t let yourself decay
If you are to live on, that is
You have to accept you will be made weak going forward
And you’ll cough up the damage into the quiet
In screams and unanswered pleas
You’ll be tired now realizing you’ve survived against all odds
And you still have to wait for the next attack
Radiation lingers with you even as you heal, deep from your fractured bones
It seeps into the love you fight to maintain
Infecting the hope that you deserve anything at all
And it will ache, and ache, and fucking ache
So, all of which to say, you have to accept this that you’re still alive
God, you will live, and it will hurt
So, good luck to you, truly I mean that
And I’ll be here for tomorrow
And so will you
You’re not poison