If there is one language common to the world, it is the language of affection. Attractions swells, sex sells, motherhood tears the body apart, nostalgia seeps into the soul, heartbreak reverberates in the thrum of our blood as humans continue to love and lose. I’ve been trying to encapsulate those affections that different languages across the world express, through a myriad of stunning words. Sensations of love, lust and loss are fleeting through the course of our lives and yet forever, as we grow into the people we are meant to be. Eternal. So here it is – a series of poetry that captures affection in every syllable and word.

Dictionary of Affections is The Zoya Project language, common to the world…

ALA RASI

‘anything for you’

I would catch
One hundred fireflies
And string them into a necklace
To sit in the hollow of your throat,
Peppering light kisses
Filled with heat,
And passion
Into the dip of your collarbones.

I would buy wishes in bottles,
And dreams in balloons
For you to dab on as perfume
And tie around your wrist,
So that when you wished
You could float
On clouds spun of candy floss
And wear lightning in your hair.

I would collect all my skipped heartbeats
And play them as a lullaby
For when you can’t sleep.
A melody that sounds like,
The tinkling of wind chimes
On a rainy day,
The sugary trill of a nightingale
When the moon is shaped like a smile,
The rushing of wind
Against a salty sea,
The famished growl of a tiger
That prowls in the jungle
Glowing like amber and obsidian.

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I would.