The Centre

To love without wanting to devour must surely be anorexic.

But so often, joy and beauty were stuck in the same places as grief and shame, and one could not be accessed without the other.

although our bodies travel by plane, the soul still makes its way on foot.

But all these traits - style, hygiene, the ability to care for oneself and one's home - are, in a man, considered exceptional, almost miraculous. Whereas in women, they are the bare minimum.

We form these elaborate fantasies of romantic partnerships, Romeos and Majnus who we’ll spend our days and nights with in a passion of rose petals and fireworks, while discounting our non-romantic relationships (if such distinctions can even be made), often more enduring and authentic. We discard them as soon as some man comes along, flashing his teeth and brandishing his penis. But it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning.

But it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning.

It’s always been like that, I thought, so much gratitude and admiration when a white person speaks a non-white language and only contempt and indignation for non-white people who don’t speak English. The double standards of language learning.

It could be that any brilliant woman who settles down with a less-brilliant man dulls herself to compensate and console.

Sometimes, it felt like I was cutting up my own tongue with a knife and fork before consuming it with that same tongue.

Maybe, through these small erasures, which we tell ourselves are ‘polite’ or whatever, we’re covering up a vast network of structural inequality.

All patriotism, in the end, is patriarchal and deadly.

A part of me feels bad even saying these things. I worry whether, in doing so, I’m falling into the trap of blaming women for their own oppression. But it’s just, I felt like I saw complicity, like I saw willful blindness.

Did he not see, I wondered, that nobody else around him was being treated like a king? Did he not connect his whiteness to the special treatment he was receiving?

Someone told me then—I can’t remember who, probably Naima—that although our bodies travel by plane, the soul still makes its way on foot.

It took forever for my body to adjust. Someone told me then-I can't remember who, probably Naima-that although our bodies travel by plane, the soul still makes its way on foot.

After a couple more months of living together, Adam and I welcomed a little kitten into our lives. We named him Billee.

Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning.

...it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning.

all these traits—style, hygiene, the ability to care for oneself and one’s home—are, in a man, considered exceptional, almost miraculous, whereas in women, they are the bare minimum.

I know it’s narcissistic to make my best friend’s new relationship about me, but it was only when I heard that Naima was thinking of moving that I realized I’d had a companion all this while in what I’d seen as a well of loneliness. And now she was distracted by this man she claimed to have manifested. And I was like, what about me? Why didn’t you feel like you’d manifested me when we met? We form these elaborate fantasies of romantic partnerships, Romeos and Majnus who we’ll spend our days and nights with in a passion of rose petals and fireworks, while discounting our non-romantic relationships (if such distinctions can even be made), often more enduring and authentic. We discard them as soon as some man comes along, flashing his teeth and brandishing his penis. But it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning. Truth

But all these traits—style, hygiene, the ability to care for oneself and one’s home—are, in a man, considered exceptional, almost miraculous, whereas in women, they are the bare minimum. I wasn’t impressed.

They saw Pakistan, the entire country, as some kind of travesty, a broken-off piece of themselves that had turned rotten and sour once severed from its root.

Shiba's was the kind of beauty that made me understand why men carried photos of their sweethearts to war

She does the wrong thing, and I'm the one who feels ashamed.

I found that I didn't want to give this man anything more of my beloved city when he'd taken something at its heart so secretively and easily.