Parasite

Attachment
leads to all sorts of side-effects:

stunting growth,
loss of strength.
Infestation leaves

you breathless, unable
to take on oxygen,
dying of thirst and want
of life

while it thrives. And replaces

you, when you are too weak
to support it. You

who nurtured
it from a seed
penetrating deep down

in your dark veins. It has grown
away from the light

taken on a toxic slant.

A bad case can kill.

If you knew what I know,
you wouldn’t be kissing.

-Louise Longson

Bio and Links

-Louise Longson

started writing poetry in her late 50s, during isolation in lockdown 2020. She is published by One Hand Clapping, Fly on the Wall, Nymphs, Ekphrastic Review, Obsessed with Pipework, Indigo Dreams Publishing, Dust Magazine, Modern Haiku, Dreich, Black Bough Poetry, The Poetry Shed and others. She is the author of the ‘Slim’ chapbook (12 poems), Hanging Fire (Dreich Publications, 2021) and Songs from the Witch Bottle (18 poems) (Alien Buddha Press, 2022).  A qualified psychotherapist, she works remotely from her home in a small village for a charity that offers a listening service to people whose physical and emotional distress is caused by loneliness and historic trauma. Her poems are inspired by a bringing together of her personal and work experiences, seen through the twin prisms of myth and legend, and the natural environment.

Twitter @LouisePoetical