I am Venom

"Everything was fine, until she took birth"

It’s been days since I posted on Substack.
Not because I stopped writing — God knows I haven’t.
I write every single day. In my journal, on the back of receipts, in the notes app that has become a graveyard of thoughts. Writing is the only constant I have.

I just haven’t had the time or maybe the courage to edit, shape, and share any of it. But today I had to.

Today, something in me felt the need to speak into the void.

Because people look at me and they don’t realise something important.
I am venomous.
No, not in a metaphor. Not in a poetic, Tumblr-aesthetic way.
I mean it in the most painfully literal way I know.

Everything I touch will get ruined.

Everything alive around me eventually dies in some silent, invisible way.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Spiritually.
Quietly.
Somewhere inside them, something collapses — because of me.

I know this not because I’m dramatic.
I know this because, once upon a time, I was four.

And at four years old, I read a letter I wasn’t supposed to read — one sentence that said “It was fine until I was born.”
I didn’t even understand, but I understood the aftermath.

That day, something rewired in me.
Not broke — rewired.
Like a switch flipped inside my small chest.

I ruin things.

And it stuck.
Not as a fear.
As a fact.

I’ve grown up, excelled, and achieved.
I shine academically.
I shine professionally.
I shine everywhere I’m allowed to stay at a distance.

But personally?

The closer you come, the more you get hurt.

It’s like I’m a porcupine — soft inside, but covered with needles that I don’t know how to lay down.
One touch from me draws blood.
One closeness becomes danger.

And still…
Still, I try.
Still, I reach out to people as if I’m not carrying this history.
Still, I let warmth enter rooms it shouldn’t.

For years, I set a strict rule for myself:
One arm distance.
Always.

Flirt with me, joke with me, talk to me, but never come too close.
Never cross the invisible line.
That way, you stay safe.
You walk away untouched.
Unruined.

And I was so proud of myself for that.

But recently… maybe I slipped.
Maybe I thought, What if this time is different?
What if I am not venom?
What if I can let someone close and not poison their life?

I was foolish.

Because the moment I stepped out of that one-arm rule, everything came flooding back.
Proofs.
Patterns.
Memories.

A twenty-five-year-old girl, my mother, could have had a different life if I hadn’t existed.
She sacrificed everything because of me.
Not by choice, but by consequence.

Every single day, I see the proof of the life she could have had.
Every single day, I see the evidence of what I ruined.

She never says, she never realises how venomous I am.

So how did I even think, for one second, that I am safe for anyone else?

How did I let myself believe I could come close to someone without hurting them?

I can’t hurt him.
He doesn’t deserve it.
He doesn’t even realise what’s happening.

And that’s the saddest part — nobody realises that the storm in their life comes from me.
Nobody sees the pattern.
Nobody sees the curse.

But I do.

I read the sentence when I was four.
And it has echoed through my life ever since.

So here’s the truth, written plainly and without shame:
Maybe I am venom.
Maybe I am the villain in this story.
Maybe distance is the safest thing I can offer.

But today, I needed to say it out loud.
Not as a metaphor, but as a confession.

I am venom.
And the people I love shouldn’t have to bleed because of me.

—
With love,
Cynthia