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Ayisha R Nov 2024
Pour couple drops
of apple cider vinegar,
onto the juicy
and plumpy
fresh meat.

Apple cider,
balsamic.

Anything
that could
wash away
—the taste.

🥩
Another perspective of pouring salt on open wound. Instead of running away from your past, you acknowledge.. cook, and eat them.

Extended version of this poem has been performed at Sama-Sama Alternative Art Festival, 2010.

_________

© Ayisha Rahman, 2010
Ayisha R Nov 2024
You know you need a therapist
—when you start
writing
again.
© Ayisha Rahman, 2024
Ayisha R Nov 2024
She—
torn up,
locked up,
showed up,
glowed-up,
glazed-up,
laced-up
the corset
that chokes
like a fauxly demure
pink tourniquet,
puppet

she is,
she was,
she’s been.

⛓️
🎀
© Ayisha Rahman, 2024
Ayisha R Nov 2024
This digital blot
has been my saviour;
doing me a favour
though shadowed
as someone else’s
labour.

This digital blood
is my waiver.
Marks of trauma;
across my chest
and shoulder.

Digital.
Blot.
Blood.

Analogue?
—demagogue.

🖋️
© Ayisha Rahman, 2024
Ayisha R Dec 2020
.
I used to have a voice—
until I become silenced.
© Ayisha Rahman, 2020
Ayisha R Nov 2020
"Cik" to "Puan"
"Encik" to "Tuan"

"Cik" to unwedded,
seemingly chaste,
selectively-sweet
glorified
young
women.

Those who appear otherwise
or have passed
a certain age
and possessed
confident demeanour
—to be married..
consequently,
"Puan"?

Men as "Encik"
regardless of their marriage,
status or demeanour—
but only those
with higher,
superior
authority
as, "Tuan"?

"Bahasa jiwa bangsa,
kenapa kau nak terasa?"

These are some
of the patriarchy
in a white-collar vocabulary
that it is not so much
of the vocabulary
but the society

that I shall
probably
never
understand.

Jadi aku unbottle
them all out in this rant.
_________

Cik [ch'k] (n) = Miss
Puan [puoan] (n) = Madam

Encik [en.ci/] (n) = Mr
Tuan [tuoan] (n) = Sir

("Language is the soul of the nation,
why are you offended?")

Jadi [ja.di] (v, can also be used as conjunction) = So
Aku [a.koo] (pronoun) = I

_________

© Ayisha Rahman, 2020
Ayisha R Nov 2020
Never trust the colour
on the packaging
—cos it’ll bleed;
red,
pink,
green,
blue,
black.

o'you'll bleed.

Those colours'll blend
into peroxidic concoction,
so you'll buy capitalistic conditioner
that conditions you
to buy again
and again
to prevent
the bleeding.

Adverts.

Fools.

Bleach!

🫧
© Ayisha Rahman, written circa 2019.
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