You Cannot Be Loved by Salek Uddin

You Cannot Be Loved
Flash Fiction by Salek Uddin

Eighteen-year-old Kabya loved a middle-aged poet—for two reasons.
The first was a philosophy the poet often spoke of.
“True love,” he would say, “is free of expectation. Love gives whatever it has to give on its own. The moment expectation enters, love begins to fade; when expectation deepens, love breaks apart.”
Kabya had listened to those words with quiet wonder.
The second reason was a story.
One day, almost casually, the poet told her about an ancient Greek painter who was brought to trial for portraying the nude figure of a young woman. Society condemned the painting as obscene. The artist then painted a single stocking onto one of the woman’s feet and said—
“Before this, the painting was not obscene. Now it is.”
On a moonlit night, upon the rooftop of the poet’s house, Kabya stood alone beneath the silver flood of the full moon, singing softly. Fearless. Pure. Unveiled in spirit like the young woman from the painter’s canvas.
Suddenly, the poet appeared before her.
Bathed in moonlight, Kabya smiled and asked—
“Tell me, Poet—who is more beautiful? The moonlight, or Kabya?”
The poet’s eyes drifted slowly from the sky down to her body.
Something in his gaze changed.
It grew heavier. Lingering.
And within that gaze, Kabya began to burn with pain.
Her attempts to stop him could not stop him.
The philosophy disappeared. What remained was the body’s unspoken hunger—silent, yet filled with expectation.
The night came to an end.
When the poet awoke the next morning, Kabya was gone.
In her place lay a small note:
“You could not escape the circle of expectation, Poet.
You burned in the very fire that consumes others.
You cannot be loved.”

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Author biography
Salek Uddin (b. 1960) is a fiction writer, playwright, poet, columnist, and public intellectual. He is a Life Member of the Bangla Academy, Bangladesh’s national institution for Bengali language and literature. His work explores the tensions between individual lives and collective realities. Through fiction, poetry, drama, and essays, he examines questions of memory, justice, and human dignity.