Death By Familiarity

Familiarity

can be a slow poison

when the toxins around you

start to feel just like home

:

When you feel a sense of

safety, warmth, and inclusion

in the gallows of what you know

:

We see it happen inside the trenches

below the bikini atolls

after normal sea creatures

were irradiated by nuclear bombs

:

Day by day

ounce by ounce

the toxic radiation

seeps through their skin

It becomes a part of their biology

the poison and the creature akin

:

But who would stray away from

a sea so familiar?

below the palm tree paradise?

even when the waters are poisoned?

When the bottomless trenches bear

a wall of protection that they know as home

:

So they swim in the water

unaware of the gradual changes

The once healthy fish

become irradiated strangers

:

But those in the trenches don't notice a difference

because their bodies have become one

with the poison they swim in