Poison is a delicate match, a tightrope to walk, a knife’s edge to never cross. To be made with poison, venom-matched with death laced within the very seams of your being, isolation is the least of your problems. Forever kept at an arm’s length, even your own lethal kin tell only their shallowest secrets. Perhaps you’re destined (doomed, a voice whispers) to die alone. Small and unloved, not many would envy your position. After all, a pretty lily-of-the-valley was to be picked off and admired, but never wanted.

Perhaps it would’ve been like those that came before you, generations of the unwanted tainting your bloodline forevermore, if it wasn’t for the poppy.

Blooming and fresh, with petals as red as the blood you didn’t (never did) bleed, they took you by the hand and personally watered your leaves.

“You’re far too pale to be healthy,” they would chastise with their rosy cheeks and bright eyes, voice always too soft and loving to be anything but fond.

At first, it was all foolish to you. Everybody always gets curious, poking and pushing until they find you too boring (too poisonous) for any interest to linger. Even their pleading eyes and loving hands couldn’t conceal the fear (unwanted, something whispers) that’s always apparent with their trembling fingers and quivering voice.

But they persevered, wrapping layer after layer of soft, woollen words around your frozen roots until eventually, it began to thaw. Honeyed moments dripped from your petals, the sugar masking your lethality that lies just under the poorly-concealed lies.

“It’s not a lie, Lily,” they would always claim under the starry sky, “it’s not your fault.”

Sometimes you let yourself believe them. Get so caught up in this whirlwind of events that you forget you are other, not meant to be lying in their (“Ours,” they would always say.) bed of soft green grass.

Once, when you were both alone in the meadow during sundown, they grabbed your hands and aimed them towards the setting sun.

“My mother once said that we were the sun’s tears,” they whispered. It was as if the whole world stopped just to listen to their words, quiet but confident and so, so lovely. “Whenever she cries, her tears fall down here,” they cupped together their hands and blew roughly into them, making a swish sound. “We are children of the sun, Lily, don’t forget that.”

How easy it was for them to say that, you thought. With rose-tinted petals and dark red lining, nobody would doubt their claim to Apollo’s kingdom. You, however, with your spindly and claw-like foliage, grey-blue pallor imbued into your petals, the sun seemed to despise your presence.

At some point, you think you started to believe them. Believe the pretty lies that they easily spilled out to the world, the repeatings of “Lily, you’re beautiful. Why won’t you accept that?” The endless days of pretending (Always pretending. You can never get what you want) to be normal.

Whether you liked it or not, this life became normal. The feeling of skimming along the edge of what you desire, but never completely grasping it as the light weaves and trickles out of your palm and into the world. They would always be there, kissing your bone-dry knuckles when the meadow’s cold, spring water did little to soothe the scratches embellished upon your skin. This purgatory was always so painful, but never too much. You could live with the knowledge of never knowing, always wanting, but also being blind to the reality of being othered.

They made the winters warmer, the summers cooler, the seasons and years blend together in a cacophony of love, love, and love.

Three springs and 13 days after their declaration to the sunset (no amount of time would ever be enough), a promise under autumn moonlight was made.

“You know, I think I was wrong.”

Incredulous laughter bubbled out of your throat, “What are you wrong about? I’m sure there’s too many to count.”

A rosy flush made its way to their cheeks. You don’t think they know they’re smiling.

“You aren’t a child of the sun,” they softly announced, “rather, the moon is more befitting.” And they took your hands into their own once more, tracing constellations upon the night sky. “One can’t exist without the other, after all.”

You liked that story much more. Repeating it night after night with their fingers intertwined with your own, telling stories of the past, so long forgotten that many have questioned their authenticity.

Repeating it until there was nobody to repeat it with.

Of course, you forgot about your h poisonous roots. The horrible curse that marred your being, making you unlovable to all but one. And that one is gone now.

It was all very blurry. One moment they were there, sweetberry jam in hand and a smile playing on their lips. The next, they were gone, sickly-sweet poison making them foam at the mouth. You’ve always taken precautions to never, ever let your death-laced foliage come into contact with their food.

You’ve grown too comfortable, too used to not being other.

They took your hands into their own, whispering reassurances of it’s okay, it’s not your fault, all the while coughing up diluted blood that so horrifyingly matched the shade of their red, red petals.

Petals that weren’t so red anymore, touched by death and infected with the curse that you were born with. Of course the first person you’ve ever poisoned was them.

“You’ll be fine,” they coughed into your numbing palm, “you’ve given me all I could’ve wanted. Find another.”

Which other was there to find? They were the only one.

“But the moon can’t exist without the sun,” you whispered into the dying day, their cold and lifeless fingers intertwined with yours in a mockery of what once was, what could’ve been.

Above, the sun and moon weeped for their children. Molten tears and silver liquid descended from the above, and another poisoned legacy begins.