Love your enemy
Love your enemy, they say. So I love them by killing them softly with my kisses, dripping with this unquenchable hate that grows stronger with each passing day. As bitter and rich as dark chocolate, as bright as the color red. Blood red. Trust me when I say my kisses are irresistible. Inescapable. To die for. Killing – quite literally.
My other enemies would attest for it or at least they could, if they were still alive.
The Cooking Gene
He asked if I could cook.
So I asked if he could hunt.
“Hunting? No. Why would I know that?” he said.
“Oh ’cause if you can’t hunt, then what would I cook?” I said perplexed.
“Well, you’re supposed to know
how to cook
for you’re a lady.”
I didn’t know there was a cooking gene
women carried innately.
So, thank you!
oh, enlightened man, for letting me know.
I said
wait…
I can smell something…
burning…
Oh, that’s the food
for you
I put on the stove.
So much so for
the cooking gene
I was bestowed.
Oh well…Time for it to be chucked away.
So say your goodbye
both to the food, and me.
And please oh please
stay miles away!
Poets are ultimately…
Seducers, teasers
who shamelessly seduce and tease
their readers
until they fully
submit themselves.
They talk dirty,
softly,
blow into their ears,
whisper
sweet little things,
tell them about the
sound that the
ocean makes.
The salty breeze,
stars at night,
the full tide,
shells on the sea shore,
moonlight,
footprints
on the sand.
Just then,
they let go off the
readers’ hand,
drown them
in the ocean, and
leave.
***Prerna Bakshi is a Sociolinguist, writer, translator and activist of Indian origin, presently based in Macao. Her work has previously been published in over three dozen literary journals and magazines, most recently in Red Wedge Magazine, Yellow Chair Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Kabul Press, Misfit Magazine, Peril magazine: Asian-Australian Arts & Culture and Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. Her full-length poetry collection, Burnt Rotis, With Love, recently long-listed for the Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in the UK, is forthcoming from Les Éditions du Zaporogue (Denmark) later this year. She tweets at @bprerna***
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