{"id":391,"date":"2025-04-24T02:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T02:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/?page_id=391"},"modified":"2025-04-24T02:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T02:55:08","slug":"miracle-poison","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/poetry\/miracle-poison\/","title":{"rendered":"Miracle Poison"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jacob Taylor\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the eighth floor of a clinic,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

a medical technician sucks 155 units\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

of neurotoxin from a small\u202fglass vial\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

into four long syringes. A neurologist\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

injects her patient: forehead, scalp,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

shoulders. 31 times, she stabs her patient\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

patient’s nerves and dabs the blood away\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

with sterile stringy gauze. Migraine dissipates\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

as miracle poison severs the connection\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

between nerve and muscle.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first recorded outbreak\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

came from blood sausage, a delicacy.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They named the bacteria after botulus\u2014<\/i>sausage.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After ingestion, c. botulinum produces\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

a neurotoxin that paralyzes:\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

fatigued and weak, they slurred speech\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

and vomited blood sausage with bile;\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

they lost their bowels,\u202ftheir legs,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

and finally their lungs. C. botulinum\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

then crept into the tin-coated iron cans\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

cooked and sealed, growing as food festered,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

oxygen-free, for c. botulinum does not breathe\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

like us. They declared canned food a hazard,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

recalled white beans, corn, sliced olives, herbal drink.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WWII: men boasted of cans of botulinum capable \u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

of killing entire armies. Rumors spread of plots\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to send prostitute assassins with gelatin capsules,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

seeded with botulinum. Tested on donkeys\u2014immune\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to botulism (reportedly)\u2014the capsules never killed. Then, cults\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

created aerosols to spray in the faces of opposition,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

an unpredictable airborne neurotoxin. Now neurotoxin\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

harvested from c. botulinum, refined into units of miracle\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

poison, is injected into muscle. Billboards say\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

it’s a girl\u2019s best friend and make your skin great\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

again and problem: facial lines and wrinkles.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pharma grows its newfound delicacy, and it sells,\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

and the memes of botched botulus clash with memes\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

of side-by-side comparisons and before-and-afters.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, they come back for more.\u202f\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jacob Taylor\u00a0 On the eighth floor of a clinic,\u202f\u00a0 a medical technician sucks 155 units\u202f\u00a0 of neurotoxin from a small\u202fglass vial\u202f\u00a0 into four long syringes. A neurologist\u202f\u00a0 injects her patient: forehead, scalp,\u202f\u00a0 shoulders. 31 times, she stabs her patient\u202f\u00a0 patient’s nerves and dabs the blood away\u202f\u00a0 with sterile stringy gauze. Migraine dissipates\u202f\u00a0 as miracle… Continue Reading Miracle Poison<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-391","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/391\/revisions\/392"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}