there was something about heartbreak
that just aged her

physically, it showed in the
creases in the corner of her
eyes — smile lines

and sometimes,
she would look at
the back of her hand
and see unfamiliar veins,
small splatters of freckles,
and wrinkles that were
never there before

emotionally, she felt
the retardation of her responses
to emotional stimuli

her laughter to a joke lagged,
the tears came late,
sometimes they
never came at all

but she felt it most
spiritually,

suddenly came the realization
and the feeling of her
seven past lives
weighing her own soul down

who knew it would take
one heartbreak to
unearth the pain
of past love?

lifting many years’ worth of
heartbreak and hurt
in every thing she did,
she grew so tired that

at night,
instead of resisting
sleep paralysis,

she’d have evening tea
with the sleep demon,
cackling loudly at the
gossip exchanged