Poison
Poison as a metaphor for the speaker herself - she should have been toxic to the older man, something he would spit out immediately, but he didn't.
The speaker as something that should have been rejected - the wrongness of the relationship should have been immediately obvious and repellent to the older partner.
Appears in 6 songs
“But love was a cold bed full of scorpions The venom stole her sanity”
Poison/venom represents the destructive force of patriarchal love that drives Ophelia to madness, connecting to the play Hamlet where King Hamlet is killed by poison poured in his ear, and to Macbeth's 'bed of scorpions.'
“So they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say”
The snakes operate simultaneously as mythological symbols of prophecy (from the Cassandra and Apollo traditions), as metaphors for the liars and poisonous accusers surrounding the speaker, as medieval symbols of deceitful speech (forked tongue), and as biographical reference to the snake emoji attacks on Taylor's social media.
“If you tasted poison, you could've Spit me out at the first chance”
Poison as a metaphor for the speaker herself, she should have been toxic to the older man, something he would spit out immediately because of her age, but he didn't. The metaphor frames the speaker's youth as something the older man should have recognised as harmful or inappropriate.
“He poisoned the well, I was lyin' to myself”
Poison as the corruption of the first relationship, 'he poisoned the well', the first man destroyed the foundation of their relationship, which gave the speaker her reason to flee. The second instance shifts to 'every man for himself,' showing the poison has spread to affect all three parties.
“Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand”
The pricked hand evokes Sleeping Beauty, the fairy tale prophecy of being pricked and falling into sleep until true love arrives. The poison blood is the consequence of the prophecy working itself out. The speaker is in the Sleeping Beauty state, waiting for the prince who will awaken her.
“Or the violence of the dog days”
Poison as a folklore image, the belief that anything you drink can turn to poison during the dog days, representing the speaker's experience of everything in her life becoming toxic.