When you speak, the lilt of your words draws me into a polluted lull

I drift through the fog, freshly blind, and I’m not sure yet if I mind

My hands are numb as they fight to grasp my thoughts

Do I hate you? Do I worship you? Do I listen when you tell me

To forget your poisoned touch on countless bloodlines?

Your breath darkens my air, you’re murmuring sweet nothings

And I am stiff with loathing, but I love the euphony.

Your voice is so romantic, I might bleach my ears

Just so I can hear the cadence of your corruption again

For a moment, your accent seems to erase your sins

For a moment, I am coarse and uncivilized

My American intonations, the Bangla I don’t speak quite right

For a moment, they warp into something unsightly.

How can anything be beautiful when your language exists?

How can I deserve to be a poet with my inferior tongue?

I long for the poise in your prose and your rhythmic consonance

I am entranced by the British, my English is brutish

And I think I am a romanticist devoid of the language of love.

You sound so lovely, I am unconcerned with semantics

I have been brainwashed into loving you

Because I know I hate everything about you

And the sordid stain you’ve left on the world

How could I ever worship you

Or the mellifluence with which you grace my insecurities?

The way you plant hate in hearts should be considered an art

Instead, we glaringly admire you.

You are sophisticated, idyllic; an orchid torn from its stem

I think I would rip out your vocal cords and sew them into my throat

Even as every drop of my blood burns with contempt

For you and for the love language of colonizers.