Types of Love to Unlearn

by Pragya Gogoi

I’ve started losing count of the deep red lines embroidering my skin.

You’d find them fitting into all classifications of lines

you learnt in middle school geometry-

running parallel from my collarbone to my elbows

or two messy intersections

 filling up spaces between my waist and thigh.

At other times, they obscure beneath bangles you’d break the previous night

after painting my eyebags with ashes of burnt cigarette stubs

and I marvel, inhaling alcohol stench on bed if this was love

for we befuddle love with tolerance on most days

when we suture our mouths, guzzling chauvinism served by manly hands.

I think about the contours on your face that I’d memorized for half a decade

where cheekbones glowing in love now watch its slow decay,

and lips carry the taste of fetid love in their cracks

and wonder if relationships could be erased like backspaces on my phone

that leaves no traces behind

or if unlearning to love was as difficult as poets bleed on paper.

I haven’t stepped on the weighing machine in a long time

or gazed at the band of white lines bedecking my thighs.

He laughs again at the flesh on my belly,

swelling like a river post a glacier melt

and enumerates in derision the number of acne patches

embellishing my skin

which reminds me of incessant nights I’ve stayed up

Listening to him abhorring my protruding flesh,

imprecating my body’s uneven terrain

and it makes me wonder

 if we could only be loved in a perfect body

and if shaping ourselves

to please the eyes of our male counterparts

only made us lovable.

At 7, sucking lollipops with candy-sticky hands

Sitting on an uncle’s lap,

I was told I was loved

when he pulled my cheeks to kiss

and ran his hands over my little legs

with beer breath on my nape.

And on days when he coerced to dress me up

and slide his musty hands into my bare chest

Nobody told me it wasn’t love-

A love to unlearn, A love to despise.

I’d grown up feeding myself on dinner tables

that heard the sound of cutlery a little too less

and loud voices of males a little more

where Mother’s voice was thinner that the chicken soup

and her opinions thrown out like fishbones from the flesh.

I’d learnt we should fear our males and let them dominate us

and grandma told me how nobody would marry us if aren’t reticent

but when Mother packed our bags one winter night

and loosened her mangalsutra to leave the house,

I unlearnt a love that existed in fear and dominance

And presumably I would learn one day,

A love that makes me love myself.

Note: The words in italics have been taken from the Hindi language based in India

Mangalsutra: a traditional necklace worn by married women in many Hindu cultures, particularly in India. It holds great significance in Hindu weddings and is considered a symbol of marital status and commitment.

Pragya Gogoi is an emerging poet, author and engineer from India whose debut poetry book " Whispers of a Nyctophile" was published in 2020 and instantly hit the Amazon bestseller list in manifold categories. She was the winner of Cherry Book Awards Season 1 in the category of poetry, Winner of Poetic Caesura Book Awards Season 1 in the category of poetry, Winner of Coimbatore Literary Awards 2022 in the category of poetry and was also nominated for the Orange Flower Awards 2022 and Indian Book Awards 2021. Her work has been published in Southword by Munster Literature Centre Ireland, Remington Review, Eve Poetry Magazine, The Verse of Silence among others. She is currently writing her second volume of poetry.