Poison

Robert Heintz Jr.
Undergraduate/Business Administration

Poison
poi - son [poi-zuhn] (noun)

Poison is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “any substance that causes injury or illness or death of a living organism.” Where do we draw the line between a poison and a cure, a right and a wrong, or good and evil? Technically, vaccines are poison, lumberjacks are poison - hell, even white blood cells can be considered a poison when they destroy (key word there) viruses and bacteria.

Even if you were to say, “But Robert, white blood cells may kill, but it is for the protection of the body in which they live.”

Fair point. Let us examine that:

The British destroyed citizens of Delhi, the Germans killed the Jews, and the South killed the North. Does killing not become justified unless you’re a member of the prevailing side; and if not, the act is a crime?

“But Robert, viruses invade our bodies!”

True, yet viruses invade our bodies just like fetuses invade the bodies of mothers (look up the definition of parasite), illegal immigrants invade the United States, and the United States invades everything else. Are all invasions evil then?

What is evil? Or the better question is, what is more evil? Does intent overshadow poor follow-through? If so, we owe Hitler an apology.

What I’m really trying to say is, while every dark cloud may have a silver lining, I bet that silver lining has a fucking lining of dark matter, or a lining equally gray as the original cloud which people were so optimistically defending.

Obviously, this entire rant, much like every other rant I have, is about love. Love is the most cunning of all poisons. It is the metaphorical tape-worm of poisons in that it doesn’t show just how fucked you are until you find yourself pulling five feet of its roots out of your body, inch by inch, wrapping it around a pencil for your entire weekend; The very same weekend that you had some first-date planned with a crush you finally worked up the courage to ask out.

Want another example? Love is worse than cocaine. Forget a constant impulse to scratch every inch of your body and vacuum that four-foot rug in your living room for the eleventeenth time, you are in love, motherfucker. You are scrambling to collect all the pieces of your shattered heart, while simultaneously telling yourself you deserve it, this was your fault, and oh yes, “Thank you, may I have another?” Fuck Agent Orange, we need Valentine Red, our love potion #9 being dumped off in vats by the S.S. BP Love Boat. You want an alliance with an oil-controlling 3rd world country? Get them to fall in love. Tell them you love them, and then cheat on them with a more profitable, less grizzly 2nd world country. They’ll be giving you everything they have and will steal, cheat and lie to give you the stuff they don’t.

If you’re still reading this, you have probably developed one of two popular opinions: Either you’re laughing out loud at the prospect of how stupid I must sound, or you’ve already texted half your friends that there’s this article that is literally screaming what your lips don’t have the power to utter. For the latter group, may I offer my sincerest apologies for the effective realism that love has torn through your life. For the former group, fuck you.

I am 101.29% jealous that you have never or may never experience the same shame and embarrassment that has caused this lovely rant on a Saturday night, drunk on nostalgia and broken-heart crumbs. May you remain blessed. Do me one favor, forget your idea of “success”. Success isn’t measured in dollars, pounds, rubles or den?ros; Success is measured in quality. If you haven’t realized this, you are not fully appreciating the gravity of the luck you’ve been blessed with. People such as we would stop at nothing in the name of love, yet love seems to want no subscription with us. We have an addiction to the greatest poison ever concocted by religious zealots. Forget God as your personal savior, Love is my salvation. I wake up in the morning solely for the chance of bumping into my demise. Love is the Roulette of all gambles; you don’t win unless you play 00. Those who make the safe bets are just playing with fire – those who never had to learn that love was a gamble didn’t know the odds of winning the lottery.

I may still be young, but my experiences with the world would impress most. I’ve travelled, I’ve gained big and lost big, I’ve been in what I thought was love and also had that same “love” torn from me. For anyone who can relate, you are well aware of the feeling; for those who don’t, let me tell you that my head has screamed louder than my lips could ever hope. To even attempt to describe the pain of unrequited love is an insult to emotion, itself. If you can successfully describe the greatest pain you’ve suffered, then you haven’t suffered enough.