Lessons from a Revolution by Ramón C. Sunico

Oh, how casually you break my heart. To read this in your letter, like it isn’t big enough to stop the world: “It’s been sleep work sleep work for me. I had a girlfriend but I think it just ended recently…long story.”

How casually you break my heart, love. As if we never shared a bed, never held hands while we sleep, never washed each other’s bodies, knowing how fragile that tiny muscle is, encased in skin and bones. How casually you break my heart, darling. I didn’t see it coming, did I. You are magnificent. How simple, how easy, how quiet. I woke up this morning and had no idea what I was in for. Incredible.

How casually you break my heart. I remember how we had to convince each other to pursue our dreams. Two years, we said. Two years of you being there. Two years of me being here. How sure I was that the distance would not matter. How many ways you went to prove it to me. And then: today. How casually you break my heart. Just like that.

I don’t know if this is what I have been preparing for these past few months of stabbing pain. I’ve been writing about loss long before you say goodbye.

So this is the beginning.

Lessons From A Revolution
Ramón C. Sunico

(for Mila)

My father taught me
this one thing:

that pain knows no
size no breadth.
It understands
no bigger no
smaller no
more no less.

All pain
blinds.
All pain
is intimate.

Have you
felt it?

It is the same
for both women
and men. The rich
feel it as much
as the poor.

Pain: who do you blame
when you feel it?

It has made everyone
the saddest person in the world.