How I Eat my Mangoes is None of Your Business by Vidya Premkumar illustrated by Raaga Katta

              

Slurph, whoosh, mmmmmph,

Yummmm, chomp, chomp,

Slurph

I will lick from elbows up 

all the way to the finger tips,

leaving a trace of saliva upwards,

where yellow juice runs down

my fingers

down the hand

pausing at the elbow

waiting for my mouth

and I oblige,

my body humming 

with pleasure

as the sweetness explodes

on my tongue.

I don’t have the patience 

to take a knife,

make artistic almost geometric cuts

on the mango and then 

flip them out,

and delicately pick each piece

with a fork.

When summer comes,

and the heat makes me wanton,

I need to sink my teeth

into its running yellow

and feel the sun in my being,

shining inside out. 

I don’t have the patience,

for I become the little girl 

on the nadan mangha tree,

swinging her feet 

and gorging on mangoes 

with the birds. 

So, to the adults who chee chee

and eeeewww 

my mango eating,

it’s none of your business 

how I eat my mango.

Bios:

About the Poet:

A born cat woman and bugs attractor, Vidya has grown up with all sorts of animals including her family. Her poems are inspired from her interactions with nature and the animals called humans caged in a zoo called society. She is an internal member of this zoo and so has deep insights into its working but also external as she never fits in. Now she has found her fit with her cats and her partner who is a Panda in the greenest part of Kerala. She writes from there and prefers her poems to travel and herself to stay at one place.

About the Illustrator:

Raaga Katta is a former HR turned artist. She is world famous on insta as Grey Brains (@grey_brains). She is a comic artist who adds zindagi to dark, mundane, absurd, weird, funny and cute moments of life with her quirkiness. Her brain only looks at complex situations as stories. Her fictional characters are funnier than her, you'll never see them in real coz they ain't so trivial. Wanna admire her, be a follower. Wanna be her, join her comic making workshop.

Stay in touch on Insta (@LampshadeWriters). We would love to hear from you! 

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This poem was selected for the prompt Food/Taste in the month of Napowrimo - April 2023.