"The seduction of inadequacy."

I begin using the phrase used in the post title,something I overheard a celebrated woman use in her video while trying to describe how hard it is,breaking free from an ugly self image.
Let me also begin by honouring this infamous statement : "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."but I have a little something to  change in  it-Nothing feels as good as a wholesome meal tastes.First off,in a world where more than a third of  the population doesn't have the blessing of nutrition,I don't think it should be turn it into a curse,hold it responsible for all that's wrong with the way we appear or don't.Yes,the food does go to waste-binged and purged out by bulimia,or flushed  down like the "unbearable ugliness of disproportion."
Have we really been reduced to embracing self starvation for the sole sake and cause  of  vanity? Clad in  skeleton suits,advertising eating disorders?
At Seventeen,I hate to see my friends silently giving away their health to fit into the norms of society-to fit into that skinniest pair of skinny jeans.
They live on tissue paper and nuts and fruits,on fortunate days.Caged birds have more liberty,indeed.
No,noone is forcing them to  do this and  noone can stop them either-and it is  wholly supposed to be their fault and flaw.And that is the saddest part of it all,society's hypocritical lack of approval and acknowledgement,ever so juxtaposed.
I also recently came across this post that claimed if  one is disgusted with  their own body,they will continue to do so even twenty pounds off the weighing scale.Why so? Because it's a way of living,not just physically,but emotionally just as much.
The actual and only kind of proportion one needs,is that of balance-of body,mind and soul.
In a country like mine,every second  person does this and noone talks about it out in the open,as I mentioned earlier in this post.Most adults adopt an attitude of nonchalance,believing denial is the best therapy and "phases just fade away themselves".And I ,left to my quiet misery of mere thinking matter,by the fodder provided by myriad thoughtless ad campaigns.
I'm no expert at psychology,but I do know we need to stop  the glorification of androgenous bodies and boxy edgelessness.Poker straight hair and air-brushed cheekbones.Oh,those cheekbones.And that wait.And those boobs! God,if only-
No.Stop.Right there.
Stop sterotyping beauty and looks.It's only us who's laying down these prim lines of conventional beauty.So,stop.With this cloned perfection,mindless obsession.
When did we stop feeling beautiful?When did mirrors become a source of self aversion? Rememeber being little and staring into the mirror? When the idea of beauty just began developing in yout mind? When " pretty" was something not predetermined or something to be achieved.It was what you saw looking back at you from the mirror.The wonder of eyes that can fill up with wonder and lips that could curl into a smile at any instant.Yes,lets go back there again.Be enough for ourselves before trying to be someone designed by everyone else.

Felt tip feelings.

                                                  I like leafless trees.I know they look very bare and all that,but I think that's exactly why I like them-they are not afraid of being vulnerable.It could be argued that they don't have an option,but nonethelss,it builds character and the kind of sublime beauty all the hiding behind leaves and shade,playing it safe,never letting the soul even peep can never conquer.

                                                I also felt this  certain feeling while looking at one,latticed above me in a criss-cross dream,as I pretended to count all the dragonflies flying low,indicator of rain,they say.

I felt this great burden lift off of my chest,set me free from this imaginary pinion I myself had created,

There were pink flowers like inverted tutus,that day-the edge of spring,the beginning of summer,deceptive petrichor-one could barely tell anything apart.

I felt whole and free and full.Like after satiating a food craving.And at the same  time,light as a cool breeze,the air curtain breeze lifting an instant of a blizzard through your hair.

A niche I had carved so within the depths of mellow denial,I  did not realise endings could feel like drizzle on your face,when you're longing for the rain.

Pretty pictures are not pretty just because you make them out to be,it's because you look at them as nothing separate from a part of who you are-

And that's when I learned that fatigue could feel good,in dark bags below my eyes and tired fingers bleeding with ink.
And sometimes the more I think,the less I feel,secured tight into suffocating knots like a fishtail braid,but what overpowers is-

                                Love embraces you much before you make note of it.

Chronicled classic.

How do classrooms feels when they are emptied of their true contents-
The presence of laughter,the whiny sighs of  protest to a surprise test,the clamor of mundane chatter and the fish market tag.
Do they feel like textbooks torn to shreds,devoid of any true purpose of existence?
Do they even stand classrooms at all-those empty,noiseless wooden chairs holding no backs,do they feel dead?
Who do those faces drawn on the charts lining the walls monitor? Who do those vandalized tables speak back  to,shout back lyrics at?
And those smiley faces,who do they peer at? And how lonely does the timetable and syllabus lists strung on the wall get with only the attention of a tree branch?
And what when-
Yes,when the classroom is shaken up,upside down,empties of its essence,the presence that it learned to define itself with.
The end of a term,the holidays gone were sad enough,what when they will be gone forever and it will be stripped of it's glory and the charts torn off-
Remaining but a fuzzy memory,injecting the feeling of warmth and familiarity,and the cold wave of change and fear,alike.
There will be new faces,it knows.New presences and in it,it will learn to seek solace,that is but it's destiny.
But every passing batch makes it old,impersonal,so,so senile.Scabby walled and monsoon-roofed.
And yet,she will throw her door open,get sidelined and trodden with scars of careless caressing.
A little emptier than the last time.

Hope for the hopeless,love of the loveless.

Waking up with eyes too swollen with unfinished sleep.
Crescents of dreams,swirly, ribbon-like,honey at the edge of teaspoon,dissolving completely into liquid consciousness.
Waking up.Eyes fixed on the little mirrored disco ball dangling at the edge of the curtain rod.Between the reflections of nothing and everything,daylight dangled too.Pouring  in,spilling,a not-so-thrilling new day.
Caught in cages by the ceiling fan,sunshine casts little dappled shadows on the floor,splattered coins of light,whirling.
Photons.Little packets of energy.The speed of light.And me.
Waking up a little more,as I watch clouds of steam,ghost vapor arms strangulate the still air,rising,rising from a cup.
Late nights.Unkempt dreams.Shallow introspection.
I want to be her.I want to be she.I want to be somebody I cannot be.I want to be-
Voice too sore before I can utter "me."
Blood is thicker than water? But love is thickest of all.A thicket of wild weed that can only be uprooted to grow back again.Like skin over an old scab.Healing,peeling,old scab.
And I will want to tear the walls down with my nails and pull my hair apart in splits,
but there is,a truth not so unsettling as every other assurance.
There is hope for us.And there might be love unknown too.
Lets pretend to stumble upon it,pretend we always knew..
The" truth".