With Love, a Poisoned Cake
I didn’t know how to tell you I hated you,
Never was I good with words, it’s true.
So I made a cake.
Sour plums, purple like envy’s hue,
Slimy and caramelized too,
Caramel too sweet, cloying and burned,
Sticking to the throat,
Sugar-coated lies churned.
The crucial part: the plums have seeds,
Large enough to crack your teeth,
Seeds shaped like broken hearts beneath.
A lone cherry on top,
Scarlet bride left to rot,
Like a drop of blood that’s been spilled,
Dripping, weeping,
Threatening to fall, layers filled.
Dry batter, flour slipping from lips,
Dust from a forsaken place,
Moistened with drops of lemon’s grip,
Overly green, acidic in trace,
With the scent of disdain, pure disgrace.
Acid tearing, corroding the soul,
Choking whole.
I offer a glass of acerola liqueur,
Spicy, piercing,
A liqueur that almost endures,
Distilled bitterness,
Face violently contorted,
Can hatred be consumed?
She swallows every drop,
Poisoned with all that’s never been spoke,
A terrible feast,
She nods, then never returns.
Cake Kiss
Your lips have the soft, sweet taste of honey,
I sink into the sticky, creamy texture,
Is it love I feel or just a tempting sweet?
Your skin is smooth like chestnut cream,
With the enveloping aroma of vanilla bean,
Is it love or the sweetness of a cake?
When you wrap me in your fillings,
When your sweet affection calms my troubled heart.
Flour spreads like soft snow on our faces,
Your citrus breath is a dance of musky fruits in the throat,
And you smile, as I smear the batter on your nose.
You warm me comfortably,
As if baking me in the oven of your affection.
Your eyes reveal me with a gaze so sweet and deep,
As if love unfolds in layers,
Which of us is the cake?
Your touches are like frosting,
Decorating the sweetness, with roses and intricate designs.
Each kiss, a layer of flavor and care,
Chocolate, strawberries, and passion fruit.
Each smile, a cherry, a crimson temptation.
And I wonder, between each bite and sigh,
If you and I are simply ingredients
Mixed in a recipe of love,
Where the cake is our feeling,
And the cruel time is the one who devours it.
Bread
Your crust is so golden,
Your buttery aroma,
That makes me wish to melt into you,
To merge with your soft existence,
To slide through your warmth.
Your embrace, freshly out of the oven,
Wrapping me in your slices,
Made with sweet milk and fine flour.
A subtle touch like olive oil and rosemary,
Of pure, warm love.
I must be careful not to burn myself in your heat.
Your affection is bread dough,
Kneaded with care, left to rise,
Fermented with pure affection,
Sprinkled with pleasure.
Strawberry jam,
Sweet love, affection materialized,
In pure sugary crimson.
Please, my beloved bread,
Never grow moldy,
Nor harden for me.
I leave my heart in your dough,
Always leave your dough for me.
Stew of Tears
"It’s too salty," complained the guest at table two.
Well, that was expected—cold and salty, too,
With a thick, starchy brew.
The bowl is too deep,
Yet the broth still seeps,
Dark and viscous,
Sticking to clothes, to skin, and lips.
Red onions, poorly sliced,
Onions that amplify cries,
Caramelized, masked by cayenne’s spice.
Chunks of meat,
Undercooked and bittersweet.
The first guest left the plate, paid not a cent,
The second asked for more, with bitter acerola as complement.
Some guests started to weep,
Adding to the pot, a cycle so deep.
They saw their anguish in the liquid's sheen,
No bread that night
To ease the scene.
Different touches for each guest’s plate:
Sometimes sour tomatoes for hearts that ache,
Other times bitter peppers for souls that break.
Pinches of sugar for those whose hopes have gone astray,
Memories in chunks of vegetables on display.
A raw meal, brutally explicit,
Unexpected and specific.
The most refined guests asked for culinary surprises,
And the chef inquired,
"Have you ever tasted tears, or have you just admired?"
Recipe for Wine
1. Start with about 5 kg of crushed desires,
Crush them well until only the juice transpires.
2. Add sugar. Every good illusion must be steeped in caramel,
To balance bitterness and make it more palatable.
This softens the bitterness, and can sweeten a possible poison (optional).
3. Water, or tears of regret,
About 6 liters, well-filtered and set.
4. Spices, nostalgia to taste,
True sommeliers recognize notes of the past, so make no haste.
The key to a proper wine, tailored to relive past pain,
Crafted to recall sorrows again and again.
•Ferment for months,
Until nostalgia is sweet and despair is dense.
The time should be like the essence of fresh blood,
Rich with deep emotional flood.
•Filter and bottle with care,
For this wine tells a tale rare.
Editor’s Note: The wine is more bitter than grape juice,
For its raw essence of shattered hopes, profuse.
*****
Lívian Bonato Moraes is a Brazilian writer known for her evocative, synesthetic prose and in-depth articles on politics and spirituality. Her work appears in several anthologies, including New Beats, Microcontos, and Esparama.
