Invisible Love: unlearning love


unlearning love
by Anushka Ataullahjan

when honour breathes in the soft
of women’s flesh, and its heartbeat
deafens the roar of unwanted gaze,
when disgrace coils around
larynx like serpents,
disappointment peels acid drenched flesh,
and form sinks into river,
wherever our sisters are

in such a place
how can a woman love and be loved?
how does she let her edges soften?
to embrace the swell below her hips
to divorce love from unravelling-
intimacy with destruction,
hold herself through the act of making love

how does she become more than a vessel,
for the desires of the men she lays with,
and the reputation of those linked by blood

in such a place
how does she

-unlearning love

Photo by Shaanzéh Ataullahjan

Anushka Ataullahjan is a Pakhtun Muslim poet based in Toronto. She once heard someone define a poet at as a person who keeps asking but why? She has never heard a better description of the thread that pulls together her life.