Venom
Triton #37.1
“Fair hero and fallen maiden” by Toby
There’s a slick shadow in the newsroom,
eyes glinting like knives under fluorescent lights.
It moves between the desks,
all teeth and silence,
drinking from the cup of swallowed voices.
Politeness is its venom,
slipped into smiles,
dropped into meetings like sugar in poison.
It hisses compliments that sting,
and every nod tightens its coil.
It doesn’t roar, it calculates.
It doesn’t fight, it erases.
voices vanish, our will dissolves,
truth bends under its gaze
until the walls of the newsroom
become a cage
lined with your quiet compliance.
This monster wears credentials like chains,
armor forged from the comfort of those too blind or too scared to act.
It eats attention, feasts on your hesitation,
and leaves only the hollow echo of erased words.
But I’ve learned the rhythm of its fangs,
the pulse beneath the mask.
I know the snap of jaws before they strike,
the poison in the smile that pretends to be safe.
And I will not be quiet.
I will not shrink.
I will name the shadow
without whispering its name.
Because venom loses its power
when you stare it down,
when you speak the truth it tries to devour.
Its reign ends the moment we stop pretending
the hiss is harmless.