{inspired by} The Sex Lives of Vegetables

I admit it.
I am not original.
I borrow ideas from others.
Namely middle-aged woman who are just a tad bit too fond of vegetables....but who profess their love with mild brilliance.


 Disturbing analogies aside, here's my take.

The University Lives of Clothing Items
[inspired by Lorna Crozier’s “The Sex Lives of Vegetables”]

The Jacket
The jacket has two arms and consequentially
 two fronts: the studious one that does what is required of it
And the one that deviates from the assigned task, often hooking up
With zippers to snag unsuspecting fingers.
An inherent delinquent, the second arm is often seen caressing the collar of the jacket;
The collar who is primarily attached to the other arm.
The hood is the mediator between the two of them,
An over-arching source of knowledge;
However, sometimes it is shady.
But it conceals its imperfections
And smiles at the teacher with innocuous eyes
Dragging its arms into a breadth of contradictions.
But graduate they will all someday
from their childish ways.

The Camisole
The camisole is delicate and so it simply skims over its readings.
The lace lining is incapable of handling great amounts of pressure
And thus, it stops reading before too much is too much.
A word more, and a rip would spurt
in the silk material and in the reading that which the camisole
Has tried to read.
Burdened with the complexity of meticulously crafted embroidery,
The camisole rejects large words.
It prefers
Small,
Tiny,
Little,
Constructs that require
Small,
Tiny
Little
cognizance.
The camisole is not oblivious to its lack of intelligence.
It simply uses other means to validate itself.
Reluctant with obtaining knowledge on a frequent basis,
The camisole does not know
What it takes to be empathetic
And provide warmth.

The T-shirt
The t-shirt is not known to be the life of a college dorm room party like the leather jacket
or the metallic, sequinned dress.
It is not known to be like the button-up shirt, studious, with a wise demeanour
and an intelligent span so great, it commands authority.
Neither is he lithe and athletic like the track pant.
No, the t-shirt is the student you sat next to everyday in psychology class but never once
distinguished from the others.
He is the one who presented in your journalism class, but no concrete memory you have of
him actually doing so.
The t-shirt is a commuter student, of course.
Class is over and a dash for the exit is imminent for him.
The t-shirt, although not completely incapable, does have a staggering amount of difficulty
in interacting with other subgenres of shirts.
A long-sleeve shirt has been his date to prom back in high school, but the night had ended
as disastrous.
The long sleeve t-shirt had been hiding a secret; one that the t-shirt could not tolerate.
The long-sleeve shirt had once, too, been a t-shirt, but shame had driven her to
dramatically alter her appearance.
And then there was sweatshirt that t-shirt had tried to befriend. However, despite its
appearance, sweatshirt did not have such thick skin.
It became difficult for t-shirt to have to constantly watch what he was saying and so
That camaraderie was also dis-'mantle'd.
Now the t-shirt keeps to himself, preferring to lay crumpled in a sock drawer (they are
young and so do not question him often) rather than join the hubbub that occurs in the
closet.
Well maybe it isn’t his choice.
But that is what it has come down to.

--Urooba Jamal © 2011 

[This was for a creative writing assignment--got a 100, so that was rather nice. :)
On the contrary, through this class I have discovered that fiction is so not my forte. Sigh, there goes my dream of being a moody, dramatic, nonchalantly elegant novelist].