Potion

A flashy poster

With a headline

So bold

A clever salesman

With a claim

To be sold

Try this!

Take that!

Guaranteed

Your stomach flat

What else can it do?

Make my skin glow?

Make my hair shine?

Make my bones strong?

Make my body a shrine?

I'll take one of these

And one of those

I'll take everything

For my head to my toes

Down with the liquid

No matter the taste

Swallow now

For health make haste

But then

I open my mouth

Curl my lips to smile

My teeth fall out

I bend my knees

Flex my foot to walk

My hip screams

I lift my head

Fight my mind to live

My body hollow instead

Because

The difference

Between

A potion

And

A poison

There is

Not a one

Not one

At all

***

Ellie's Wonderland Challenge Prompt - Day 16

Author's Note: This poem was inspired by the true story of the Radium Girls, a group of young women who worked as watch dial painters in the early 1900s. Many of the girls were poisoned and died as a result of their exposure to radium, a radioactive element used in the paint, which was not thought to be hazardous at the time. Shockingly, radium was claimed to offer many health benefits and was as an additive in numerous consumer products, such as cosmetics and beverages. Following the devastating cases seen with the Radium Girls, radium was later determined to cause cancer, aplastic anemia, and other serious health conditions.