Do men cry? Is it permissible for a man to express his emotions; sadness, joy, love, or hate? What makes a man? In my pursuit of Truth, I learned to question; to satisfy the compulsion to know Love. Can a man love true?

          I was a cruel soldier; uncaring, unfeeling, to the wiles of emotion, shutting out the very essence that made me human, destroying the inner being that was fostered by the love of family and friends. For, how can a man who is loved, become so violent?

        Unless, he tears off the very membrane that is his heart, never loving, never hating; neutralizing repelling that which defines his inner self secluding in a wisp of self confinement within the isolation of an empty and cold room that was my heart, locked away from Love. I did this to myself in leaving love behind for I had nothing and no one to believe in.

         Manuel, a video store proprietor, suggested that a man keeps his word. I have never made a promise I could not keep and by reflective reasoning, I cannot keep a promise I have never made, and yet I have promised her that I will love forever true.

          In my childhood, I’ve had several loves. In making this confession, I do not pretend to boast that I’ve had several sexual encounters, but rather, I’ve had many friends, who my heart had been entrenched with to whom I am still faithful, for if I were not, love would be untrue and I have promised them that I would love them forever as I did her.

          In my heart I learned that hate is wrong as fear lies underneath. How could I have feared love unless it led to another broken heart? How much more could I have had endured when I had pieces of a broken mirror reflecting the sorrow, my heart epitomized. I was empty, cold, and void of emotion. I loved when I was a child but when I grew up I believed I had to put away those childish things.
         
          I have never been a person who surrounds himself with people, for I became anti-social. I’ve always kept to myself. Yet for those whom I‘ve allowed myself to form an amorous tenderness, will forever be carried in my heart, in my memories, and my children’s children will know of them, because I will keep their memory alive among my descendants in hopes that through them such friendships may last forever.
         
          Love Letters is a collection of poems written primarily for girls whom I had an immense attraction to. If I were to say I am a man, I would be a liar for Sergeant Gonzales once said to me, “A man faces a challenge...” All the love I’ve had for these girls, who have grown to become beautiful women, were a quiet love. I never faced the challenge of engaging in enamored affairs, with the excepted few that can be counted by the fingers of one hand. Perhaps I was scared to confess my emotions then.

          Truth is I didn’t quite know how to go about courting nor was I ready for the repercussions should I had done so, for unsanctioned sex was the farthest sin from my mind. And such was easy to secure.

              I wanted more. I wanted marriage, eternal marriage, but reality said to me, I could not meet the affect. That’s where these poems come in, for nothing else permeated within the heart of a High School child.

               And yet the anguish of misery haunted my being with visions of death to an American dream and as the soldier that I am, I left home a second time to fulfill a mission of religion; a true purpose, to harvest what remained of my humanity, and gambling for high stakes; Eternal Life, Eternal Love, with Eternal Friends.

            As you read along, I will make a brief history in chronological order of what had transpired at the time I wrote these poems and to whom they were for. To not distract from the reader’s attention, the brief narratives behind the poem will be supported after the poem itself. The list at the Table of Contents is in alphabetical order. Be you amused for Love is a funny thing.