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…

DESIDERIUM

‘An ardent longing for something lost’

That the moon had never looked silver
But more insipid white
And yet was never called so
Always confused me.
That the shadows that shone
Over the full circle of rock,
Making it appear like a sliver
Were nothing more than shadows.
That fishermen, didn’t throw lines
From sitting atop a crescent-shaped story.
That the stars were not fairies or wishes
Waiting to be told
But balls of gas
That never stayed constant.
That wonder could die
And be lost within the reaches
Of a milky opal
Awash in the wake of silvery lies
And tall tales.
miror aufugit ex mea oculi et cor meum
And in it was born desiderium.