Chakkakuru (Jack fruit seed)

You slippery fiddly one, with

That water-proof white coat

I shall cut you, then cook. Oh!

No, don’t slip, lest I would cut my finger.

I shall remove your bulgy –eye

First, the very mouth of your soul

Through which you sprout out

For I don’t want you to see me

Peeling you and the pain in my eyes

Reflecting that of a girl in the womb

Of life, striving to sprout, while being peeled

Her own skin away, to make a naked one-self.

The skin of shyness, the skin of lenience

That makes the bone a rubber twig

The life games such a wild number on her

And she sways in its whirling winds

She dies a death strangled by

The entangled creepers on her branches

She would rather be naked to let

The roots surge through her every pore

To grip a hold so strong to the soil

That she may withstand such winds

No matter how hard this water-proof

Slippery coat protects the white grace within

One day, one day it has to be broken

Either to die or to sprout!