'Romancing the Oleander' in Panocha Zine and Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English

Well, so the banshee always keeps thinking of dying and when she does so, of course she will come back as a ghost to haunt the same people and the same places (the advantage being that ghosts are invisible, cannot be seen, and can even fly, move through air, do mischief without being caught and things like that). So the banshee's chosen method of dying is the oleander plant-- very pretty and very poisonous. And the banshee is such an incorrigible romantic at heart, that she began romancing with the oleander itself and courting death! 

'Romancing the Oleander' was first published in a rather obscure US print journal, Panocha zine, in its Yerba issue, Yerba basically meaning plants. The banshee's take on plants is rather macabre as you can see. This was furthermore accepted for the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, and well, I leave you with the banshee and the oleander. 

Romancing the Oleander

I desired its pink flowers

and its spiky, lance-like leaves

I read one could get you poisoned

and twelve could leave you dead. 

The yellow flowers are the commonest

in India, but the red, being more poisonous

would suit my purpose better. The seeds

would do just as well. Anything, really. 

Any part of this pretty ornamental garden plant

which hid death in the whorls of its flowers. 

How harsh a death could such a pretty flower

bring, after all, and such a lilting flower name

though the leaves are bitter? The flowers too,

 I suppose. Imagine a pretty death

devoid of bitterness. They sell a plant for about 

three hundred rupees, on Amazon. I thought

I could keep a plant-pet, love it, grow it, 

 perhaps eat it. I could always garden, 

in case I didn't die. Thus I have a macabre romance

with the oleander. Either I grow the oleander, 

or the oleander kills me.