ON THE WAYS OF LOATHING

---A parody of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "On The Ways of Love"

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the bricks!

I loathe thee to the up and down and deep

My feet can kick,when fine you make me sick

For the migraine feels much better when I sleep.

I loathe thee to the level of dirty streets

Where I will not walk,by sun and tubelight!

I loathe thee freely,like posters I read.

I loathe thee sourly,like fruitless lost plight.

I loathe thee with a passion when I fought

My brothers for the video games dad bought.

I loathe thee with hate I seem to bear

For your antithesis. Nothing is dear

Where I come first and everything next.

I shall loathe thee more when i know facts!

A genuine manifestation of loathing that I bear for her poetry; not that I hate her poetry but the theme just provokes me to dislike it due to its excessive unpleasant mawkishness and embarassing sentiments of her feverish romantic notions. She must have truly loved Robert Browning but to a modern reader like me one can't help but read the poem with a certain amount of weariness. "The Ways of Love" has thus been subverted in a moment of annoyance because my university, Calcutta University,had the audacity to include such poem in the syllabus. I'm more of a 'Prufrock' fan. :)