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…

ANAGAPESIS

‘No longer feeling any affection for someone you once loved’

I had not known that ballet
Was best watched alone.
That when we danced
On the cogs of an old clock
It was the tapping of your boot
And the clinking of my glass slipper
That was the tick tock that rang in our ears.
That swishing ball gowns
Were cumbersome to wear
And ballerinas were allowed to wear tiaras too.
Pirouette, relevé, plié, jeté
Were all something I could do
Without the need of your arms
On my waist
Your fingers in mine
Your lips on my forehead.
i πέφτουν έξω από την αγάπη
(I fall out of love)
And into anagapesis