The idea behind this series was to curate stories and pieces that reclaim the love that isn’t always visible. The love that makes us question what defines heartbreak, what defines a connection, how we learn and unlearn, how we teach and feel love. These questions are brought to the surface through this collection of visual works, poetry and text created by women who’ve beautifully visualized all the love you can’t visibilize.
Still Life at Twelve in the Morning by Oyin Olalekan
I close my eyes to keep your hand pressed against my cheek, to count the callouses between your fingers.
I open my eyes and I am bigger than my room, I have been to all the places on my walls.
I am learning to trust myself again to kiss the face of desire open-mouthed and not be sorry. Which is to say, there is a man who lives on Calle Goya
He kisses me open-mouthed and I am not sorry.
I close my eyes and it is siesta. Someone is making an omelet, its snap and sizzle skips into my room. We make my bed a ship without anchor and the lady across the street wails her notes to buoy us up.
At midnight, the birds flash golden in the light of the cathedral. When it rains the streets run with color, the ground mirrors the sky, and I find myself splashing through stars– this is how love found me tender-tongue and bared teeth for that which I adore.
In Zahara, your eyes were a patient river buffing my jagged edges smooth, I gathered what was left of me tossed it into the ocean and scrubbed my face clean.
This is how I marked my way home: by the Torero who keeps his three loves encased in his chest, and the porter who pats my cheek like his own, and the old man who stands on the corner of Esperanza de Triana and promises to marry me.
I close my eyes and it is 6 am. All the alarms are ringing. Guapa, you say, Que tanto suerte tienes. How lucky you are. I count your breaths, match your rise to my fall, count the number of men I have smiled for. But you have kind eyes and soft hands and a quick tongue to fill your mouth with my name.
I remember the linen of your fingers against my ribs, you say, Guapalet me paint you.
I say, listen,the man downstairs sings for us his voice so rich our silence is lush with sound.
I open my eyes; I have been stranded in your sweater for days.
Now, when I say your name it is only the mouth of midnight that catches my breath.
Sketch by Ellie VanBerkel
Oyin Olalekan is a Poet, Screenwriter, and Filmmaker. Her solo exhibition Speaking (in Tongues) was followed by an appearance of her work in the Sawubona Project. She is a Winter Tangerine Writing fellow, and was selected as an Emerging Director by the Doc Institute’s New Visions Program. Her forthcoming short film, Kitchen Talks will be her directorial debut. She holds a Masters Degree in Media Production from Ryerson University and is always reaching for the next story to tell.
The idea behind this series was to curate stories and pieces that reclaim the love that isn’t always visible. The love that makes us question what defines heartbreak, what defines a connection, how we learn and unlearn, how we teach and feel love. These questions are brought to the surface through this collection of visual works, poetry and text created by women who’ve beautifully visualized all the love you can’t visibilize.
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, fire, exile, wherever our sisters are disappeared
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 become
-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.
The idea behind this series was to curate stories and pieces that reclaim the love that isn’t always visible. The love that makes us question what defines heartbreak, what defines a connection, how we learn and unlearn, how we teach and feel love. These questions are brought to the surface through this collection of visual works, poetry and text created by women who’ve beautifully visualized all the love you can’t visibilize.
When I Refuse You by Fiona Raye Clarke
When I refuse you you wrap your resentment around me like netting. Catch me in your freezing waters to take me home and slice me open. Discard the soft parts, the fluids, the insides baiting me with worm promises.
Don’t you see all the times I’m kissing you hanging onto something you already given up: put your foot over the railing, swing your legs over the other side to jump.
I have to be the raft, the boat, the sail, the anchor. I have to navigate the winds with a lick of my thumb and forefinger while you get called ‘Captain.’
I am not even second mate. I ride the ship’s bottom. Hang flank on the ballast, dancing with the slaves. To keep my body limber not for my own sake but so that I can keep working.
Fiona Raye Clarke is an award-winning Trinidadian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist. Her writing has been featured in print in Broken Pencil Magazine, alt.theatre, and The Peak Magazine, and online at Room Magazine, Shameless Magazine, and The Puritan. She was a 2018 Diaspora Dialogues Long-Form Mentorship Program mentee and a Firefly Creative Writing Writer-in-Residence. She is currently based in Toronto. @fionarclarke
in the way it awkwardly dances in my mother tongue,
in the way i stop the dance when the lights are on,
lit by my mother,
lit by my father.
how hurtful is it to see the pain in your eyes when our tongues don’t move at the same rhythm.
how hurtful is it to see the pride in your eyes when our tongues move at the same rhythm.
Caribbean Sea. The Ayiti they don’t showcase. View from the 500 steps in Koto.
Growing up in Montreal, when I was a teenager, I would always feel at home with friends of colour, especially Haitian friends, with whom I felt I could relate even deeper. We would laugh at some of our parents mannerisms. When we spoke French, we would throw in Kreyol words. When I would return to my parents’ house, I would hide that side of me. Responding to my parents in French only, ashamed my tongue would twist in the wrong ways. I felt in between worlds, not Canadian enough, not Haitian enough. Internally struggling as I proudly said I was Haitian, only out of my home. I was looking for my place.
My parents immigrated to Canada for different reasons. My mom came from Haiti as a teenager for better educational opportunities while my father came as a young adult to escape the Haitian Duvalier dictatorship at the time. They left behind their homeland, families, friends, culture and lifestyles. They had to start fresh, relearn everything, and face new forms of racism.
Road in between my dad’s family house and my sister’s house, in Kanperen, Ayiti.
I say all this because I carry their stories within me as I navigate this world to create my own stories. My dad would tell me how as a young adult he never knew if he would be able to come back home as a lot of young folks were getting arrested, kidnapped, or killed by soldiers. He never realized how his life was holding on to a thread until he stepped foot in Canada. My mom actually never went back, after 44 years, feeling the pressure of the shame to have abandoned her country and the trauma to come back to a homeland that doesn’t feel like home anymore. My interests have an origin. An origin of struggle. As a child of diaspora, navigating my identity has never been easy. Always on a search to define who I am and who I am not, caught in-between two worlds, and sometimes more. Going against whoever comes to bash Haiti and its beautiful people. Stuttering when people ask me where are you from? No but, really?
I went to Haiti last summer for the second time, accompanied by my father. The purpose of the trip was to learn about Haitian drumming, research locals’ beliefs and practices around Voodoo spirituality, and reconnect with the land and the people, especially family members. The challenges that surfaced on this trip shed light on how I was romanticizing Haiti and my connection to it. I was thinking about all the beautiful moments I would living without any obstacle; the food, the music, the conversations. But trying to fit in my ancestors’ homeland is a process that takes time, and the privileges I hold as a Canadian-born body blur my identity. When a family conflict happened in Haiti, I knew I had a ticket to leave and go back to Canada eventually. I have the privilege of mobility. Another struggle was also questioning, and being ashamed of questioning, relationships; wondering if they’re sincere or if people are simply expecting gifts, an access to migrate to Canada, or money, in exchange. Heartbreaking. I don’t blame them, nor myself, I blame all the –isms, the systems exploiting our land, people and resources. Migration, whether forced or chosen, always has some deeper implications relating to colonialism, imperialism, racism, capitalism, and/or all other oppressive –isms.
Avocado tree in my family’s backyard planted by my grandfather I never met. It is over 50 years old, having provided avocados to 3 generations and counting.
I didn’t choose where I was born, I didn’t physically migrate from one place to another, but my ancestors did, my parents did. This movement is in my blood. Carrying their stories, also means carrying their trauma. Even when it manifests in different ways. Ashamed of the way my tongue dances between languages, the journey continues. I leave shame behind, as I commit to compassionately allow myself to use the language that was so beautifully crafted by my ancestors.
Family of chickens living freely in my family’s backyard.
Throughout my stay in Haiti, I realized what drew my attention a lot was nature, whether it was the actual land, animals, the sky or families of chickens, banana trees, kabrits, and the list goes on. This attraction taught me a lot about my search for connection, with my own people, whatever that looks like, and with the land of my ancestors which links me to a deeper aspect of my identity. Becoming aware of this longing, I see now how it translates to all aspects of my life; the friendships that became the extended family I never had access to, my community and art interests. For me, it’s seeing how existential questions relate to my communities, where I create & sustain safer spaces for/with my communities, exploring roots and traumas, and always wanting to learn about the stories that make up someone’s life. What stories hold the foundation of the ground on which you stand?
Anne-Audrey is a black queer woman of Haitian descent, 2nd generation. The layers of her identity are explored through the art that she creates and the community she strives to be a part of and build. The main themes being diaspora identity, healing, land, queerness, trauma, and migration, and how they all interact with one another. She loves creating, whether it be theatre, djembe drumming, poetry, or cooking; trying to break the boxes she was taught to exist in. Channeling her self-discovery journey is a healing and revolutionary act where she reclaims the power of authoring her own narrative. Currently based in Montreal, she studies Performance Creation at Concordia University, and facilitates i woc up like dis: self-discovery, a workshop series for women of color, using theatre and photography for healing and transformation. @findinglyfe_
