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

here she goes again,
a devotee on her knees
at the peak of the full moon,
past midnight yet
way before witching hour

it’s the third time that month
that the girl kneels before Her,
weeping at the altar of Aphrodite,
feeling the full weight of past loves
on her fragile spine,
almost as heavy as the past lives
she was forced to carry through her youth

she was so young,
but her lamentations rang
millenniums before her

oh, Aphrodite

she wept

how many more innocent roses
do i rob of blooming?
how many more candles
left burning?
how many more full moons
do i watch waning?

the words overlapped in
deafening incoherence
but the clarity of pain
rang above the noise
of mumbled syllables

it was clear enough
that Aphrodite –
the cold goddess –
wept a tear

for She has allowed
this girl’s heart
the sweetness of infatuation,
only to drown that out
with the inevitability of disenchantment

i’ve always wondered how you were made,
not in the shallow, human concept
of Conception and Birth

more on how you were
really Made

frankly, i have no idea but
i do have a fine guess

i envision a goddess
dressed in a robe made of
stardust and ****** tears,
resting upon the crescent moon
as she watched over humanity

for some reason,
she loved your mother
very much

she watched her through
lovers, heartbreaks, hardships

she wept
whenever your mother cried,
and made constellations
whenever she smiled

she loved your mother so much
that she gave the gift of You

made with the same material
as the stars, as the full moon,
as the gems she buried
beneath our earth

and i guess
the goddess loved me too

because she gave me
the miracle of meeting you

they say that everything around us,
all the beautiful things –

the dainty flowers that scatter the earth,
the light of the sun crashing against tall trees,
the mysteries of the depth of the ocean,
the soft hum of the strong wind,
the stars that are so surreal that
I still have a hard time comprehending
how something so magnificent could possibly exist
in the very universe I am in–

are created by one god

but when i look at you,
i just stop and think

****,
a million gods must have made you

a painting of
Mother and Child
with heavier influences
of a pieta;

for in this one,
the mother holds her child
dead in her arms

but it is no grown Messiah –
it’s a drugged up teenager,
supposedly deserving
to be the centerpiece
of a demented madonna

this is what La Sol wants us to see:
the image of the Ninita,
dressed in a white linen dress,
eyes squinting as the
orange rays hit her caramel eyes
fingers covered in the
viscosity of the mango
she was devouring

but it was the dim of La Luna
that showed us who Ninita really is:
eyes squinting as the
red fluorescent hit her painted eyes,
fingers reaching for
the dirt of gold,
oh the pains of being Devoured

you loved me
yet we didn’t work out

you loved me
but we never lasted

you loved me
and it was what made
the end so painful

you loved me

and i’m sorry that
i could not love you

as much as i would like to
tell you my excuses,
i would not because
i know that after all this ****,
it’s not what you want to hear

and i know you want me to say that
at some point in our time together
i loved you too,
even if it was just a bit

but then,
i would be lying

i’m sorry for us to end like this
and i’m sorry if i seem harsh;
i just want to stop lying to you
even if it’s a little too late

because this letter is not to
make me nor you feel better,
it’s about the truth

and this is the truth

i was lenient and unappreciative
and i was (and am)
a fool for not making you feel loved
when all you did was love me

but then again,
you loved me too much
and gave all of your heart
to someone who didn’t want it
in the first place,
without realizing
that you needed it
to live

and i’m sorry you had to wonder
all this time about my feelings
that it led you to the point
where you plucked all your petals
and ended up with nothing

i hope one day
someone would love you
as much as you loved me,
love you so much
that you’d never pick off
your petals in a
guessing game of love,
so much that you’d
always have fresh roses