Rhetoric nights

"Why do these things happen if at all there's a god,a higher power?" I ask my father.
Some things just don't have answers,he tells me.My hurting heart is not satisfied.It's not enough of an answer,it'll never be.
Why does society make mockingbirds out of the innocent? Why do harmless little pets die suddenly? Why do some little kids grow up to be the bullies you find hard not to recognize as beast like?

Maybe there really are no answers,maybe life is a constant existential crisis.

But I fight my heart to believe there are answers within these questions,themselves.I'm no optimist,but I live because I see questions as symbols of hope.Hope is real,rhetoric and relevant as it gets.
It's like we're living the rhetoric.
A new day is the rhetoric we know to exist in every stormy night.
Children are the rhetoric form of the questioning fear of oblivion.
Grief is the rhetoric to heartrending loss.
Late night conversations,the rhetoric to loneliness that these pillow talks revolve around.
Love is the rhetoric to existence,itself.Because the universe doesn't care about us,
we have always been infinitesimal.We care about one another,we are all we have in this world.

'Fat'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3bc9lS3rg


As a little girl,I always wanted the texture of skin like a watercolour painting,
a fine china nose,carved out like dainty flower  on a bone china teacup,
I wished and wished that my name would be 'Rose'
and I dreamt of running as fast as other six year olds could.

Pink was the colour of my whole,entire wardrobe,
slick,straight hair,adorned forehead,babydoll fringe,
and my little feet fit into a Mary Jane collection I took pride in.
Everything Barbie, and tea sets and dolls defined,swimming pools
and cartoons and colouring books- all I ever wanted from life.

My sister and I,we dressed almost identically,
except the identical outfit colours contrasted-pink was a colour only I owned.
Soon,I was 'too big' to fit into pretty clothes anymore,
my feet outgrew the junior section size,'not for you',
 the look on the salesman face read.

Hurt was my precious world,tainted pride,
my parents shushed my sentences that came out
like a lisp,tongue stuck to palette,they scolded,
'no longer a child',I was doing it for attention.

They made me a circus clown at five,
 I walked the stage feeling wronged,
hating me for being too tall for a ballerina,
Thinking,"those dainty little girls are so lucky".

Once I found a transparent pink bead in my shoe,
that looked like a diamond to my naive eyes,
I treasured it,but  lost it too soon,
like all the broken shards of bangle and broken teacup glass
I picked from the sandpit at school

I missed being carried,lifted up by my parents,loved
before I was too tall,too heavy,too much
of a fuss I knew not how I had become..
'fat' was the new word for me.

The youngest of the lot,annoying baby sister,
life is a bully,and I learnt the better part of this,
the night I waited an hour at my only friend's doorstep,
because her mother thought me a waste of time and mine,
screamed down at me from the balcony.

Names,what's in them,many given to me
"orange" and "lemon" in games played,a buff,
never taken seriously,"pregnant" because I couldn't run fast enough,
"unhealthy" when we were first taught what it meant.

This predilection meant,Love was not meant for me,
In a futile future,he said "no" because fat and ugly is all he could see,
no poem I wrote,no beautiful dream I dreamed
could justify this harsh reality.

A child,I did not understand the meaning of most of what fat meant,
but it sounded negative,the tone it was hurled at me in,
hurtful and mean,so I believed,believed,
that it was all I could ever be,"a disease",

Like that doctor said,the one who said "obese",
Walk it off,don't eat much,
unhealthy.Cry now,hope you feel bad about it.
No one ever said to me"don't take this shit".

What remained?
An identity?

Fat.
A broken record on repay.
Sometimes,
I still feel it so strinkingly,
a joke to others,but just a shape it should be,
why can't I ever be good enough just as you see

Why do most not choose to say just pretty,
over "pretty for a fat person,she" ?

Date a girl who likes ketchup

 
(The fault in our ketchup lovers.)

Date a girl who likes Ketchup.Date the girl who always asks for extra sachets of ketchup.She will refuse to touch the food unless there is ketchup included in the meal in one or the other form.Date a girl who will add ketchup to her ketchup,and not complain about the food as long as there's ketchup at the table.

Find a girl who likes ketchup.You'll know that she does because she always has extra sachets of ketchup stacked up in her fridge.She's the one who keeps eying the ketchup bottle lovingly,waiting to get her hands on it.You see the weird chick who's licking the ketchup off the edge of the plate while waiting for the food to arrive at a restaurant?That's your true ketchup lover.They can never refrain from reaching out for the nearest source of ketchup available.

She's the girl who will ask for ketchup,and you'll see her eyes light up when she is offered with it before she has to ask.If you take a peep into her plate,you can see the excessive amounts of ketchup coating the substantial food groups.Sit down.She won't talk to you at first because she's so engrossed in making the most of the ketchup experience,but she might stare at you and then your fingers to see if you've been eating ketchup too.

Ask her if she wants more ketchup.Ask her if you can get her a particular brand.Pass her the ketchup bottle before she asks for it.Use the ketchup-y pick-up line about her being saucier than ketchup.She'll laugh it away but also find it adorable,the same.

Let her know what you actually think of Heinz.See if she prefers Maggi over Kissan or DelMonte.If she likes the squeezable plastic bottles over the glass ones.Understand that she knows that "ketchup" was derived from an ancient Chinese delicacy that had no tomatoes,and lots of fish and she still refers to it as "catsup" sometimes or she's just saying that to sound sophisticated.Ask her if she likes homemade ketchup.

It's easy to date a girl who likes ketchup.Gift her a bottle of ketchup wrapped in a pretty red ribbon on New Years' Eve,gift her sachets of ketchup with a note tucked in between on Christmas.Make her homemade ketchup on her birthday,lick the ketchup clean off your fingers together in unison.On a bad day,a ketchup smiley on her food is all it might take to make her smile.The one-liner about ketchup being a smoothy will always be sure to crack her up.It's more than she'll be asking for.Let her know that you understand that ketchup is love.She will never compare you to random people,because she knows that all brands of ketchup have their own distinct taste and nothing can measure up to her favourite.

 Fail her.She'll understand if she understands that the consistency of ketchup at different levels of the bottle cannot be the same.She knows sometimes you have to jolt the bottle harder,squeeze the sachets till the last dollop is out.

She will share her ketchup with you,served with her secrets.To her,it equals sharing half of herself and the bottle will now run out in less than two weeks.She will let you hold her when she cries,as you get her a bowl of ketchup to make her feel better.You will propose to her with a ring hidden in the fridge  placed next to sachets of ketchup from your last romantic take-out dinner.Her face will turn the  shade of ketchup at the prospect.
There will be way too much ketchup at your wedding.She will introduce to all the kinds of ketchup known to her and you will slow dance to the ketchup song.One day,she will make you homemade ketchup.That's when you know she's the one you grow old together with."Ketchup" will be the term of free-flowing endearment at your house,to show affection towards you and the kids.It'll grow on you.She'll maybe make you acquire a taste for ketchup,even.Her sense of humor will include pretending she's a ketchup zombie or faking injury with ketchup.You'll find it endearing,as you fall in love with the way she falls asleep,like ketchup out of a bottle,slowly and then,all at once."Ketchup? Ketchup. Maybe Ketchup will be your Always." (Tfios adding too much definition to life and all.)
You'll have a word that sums up "I love you" ,but so much less cliche and so much easier to mouth.All you'll have to say is "ketchup."

Date a girl who likes ketchup,because you deserve it.You deserve a girl who finds solace in the simple pleasures of life,such as ketchup and has mastered the art of bottling up fears,but letting them flow free before the expiry date.If you can only give her the monotony of mayonise,hung curd,barebeque dip,terriyaki sauce,mustard,ranch and salad dressing,you're better off alone.If you want to revel in the tangy aftertaste of every new adventure along with undying devotion for lycopene and love,date a girl who likes ketchup.