In the native tongue of my ancestors,
Love has three words
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Mera pyaar tumhaare li hai
My love is for you
Soft syllables spilled from my mother’s lips
Sweet as the golden nectar of mango lassi
The delicate parting of lips
Crafting poetry with vowel and breath
Pehli si mohabbat
First love
The dawn of a heart’s blooming
The birth of a heart’s withering
Fleeting memories sealed with broken tears
For this is bittersweet hope the heart cries
Ishq-e-illahi
Love for Allah
Tender and raw
The bruised and torn search
His mercy, the ocean’s abundance
Where unspoken duas sail upon
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
And thus, from native soil my ancestors laced
With swollen palms and nimble fingers
The rich tapestry of love
Bridal crimson kissing sunbaked auburn
Heartbeats woven with footsteps
Anguish woven with stillness
Breath and lip interlacing
With accent and diction
To birth love in its wholeness
To birth love in its entirety
For love they believed
Was meant to be felt, not defined
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq.
Rimel Kamran is a current junior and the Cincinnati Youth Poet Laureate. Her poetry aims to build community, celebrate diversity, and share her Pakistani-American identity. She hopes to share her love for poetry, especially with youth, and encourage them to seek the unheard poem within them. When she’s not writing she enjoys pursuing her interests in science and medicine.