Love Poem: Rubina
Over-wait
by Rubina
To finally lose enough weight?
To have hair that's smooth and straight,
But still be hairless bait?
Do you remember all the jalebi you ate?
Was it really worth the jiggly gait?
And those glasses aren't exactly ornate,
Although they do hide those sideburns, at any rate.
You've been on a diet since you were eight.
Getting monthly waxes since 2008.
Always trying to find the perfect breastplate,
To enhance, modify, and accentuate.
Letting too many around you berate,
What you and your body create.
How long must you wait,
To finally lose the hate?
To not let the social dictate,
Your worth and your fate?
Love yourself, not as you get to be seen and interpreted by external agents, but just and only as you are-- here, actually love commences, emanates and permeates, and withstand everything which isn't it.
ReplyDeleteAha!
Beautifully expressed about our society's beauty standards. Or kabhi kabhi hume chahne waale bhi chaahne lagte hai joh sabko acha lagta hai and ignores the real us. Amazing Rubina.
ReplyDeleteGlad you pointed out every little thing from waxing to weight or some perfect breastplate.
We don't have to match those beauty standards to love someone or to be loved by someone.
Very nice!
Rubina, this is beautifully written! The best thing about it is that everything you've written is so relatable. Sometimes, love and acceptance towards oneself is the most difficult kind of love to achieve. This vocalizing and acknowledging that there is something terribly wrong in our world today, is just the kind of thing that liberates one (to some extent) from these societal compulsions. More power to you! Thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteDo look up "Pretty" by Katie Makkai. (If you haven't already. And if you enjoy spoken word poetry)
Wow, this poem is highly relatable for so many of us. We have always seeked love, foremost from ourselves and with the culture around us, it becomes so difficult. You have put this insecurity so beautifully that it has made me go back and read it again, only to relive my day to day affairs.
ReplyDeleteThe way you have broken the lines into 4-4-4-2-3 and 1 say a lot. They are tied very well.
A suggestion-
"Although they do hide those sideburns, at any rate. " I found this line to be a little out of place, and forced. If you could maybe look at it broken, or more simply put, it would be great.
Hi Rubina
ReplyDeleteI like the content of your poem. You are, in fact, addressing something that leaves most of us insecure at one point or the other. There is a sense of positivity that runs through the poem that is born out of a realization of the way we have all been trying to mould ourselves to our ideas of "perfection", and you call it out beautifully. I also quite enjoy the wordplay of "wait" and "weight, something I noticed in your Ghazal as well, you have a way of playing with words and its quite fun.
I would like to leave you with this one suggestion though, the rhyme scheme gets very monotonous with the same sound being repeated after every line. You could try the 'a-b-a-b' or the 'a-a-b-b' rhyme scheme for your poem, it might give it a better rhythm.
Hope this helps!