Go on...It's not poisoned - Picture Plate

A woman offers a box of chocolates, her posture composed, her expression carefully neutral. The gesture is familiar — an attempt at sweetness, an effort to bridge distance — but the phrase tells us there’s more beneath the surface.

Go on… it’s not poisoned reads as dry humour rather than threat. A joke shaped by thought, hesitation, and the awareness that things aren’t quite as they should be. It’s reassurance delivered lightly, masking the effort it took to offer something kind in the first place.

This plate sits firmly within Chapter II — Performance, where affection is given consciously, not carelessly, and warmth is offered even when certainty has faded.

Quiet, knowing, and faintly bruised, it captures the emotional labour of trying — politely — to keep things pleasant.