Abraham Garcia’s Love Letters & Disillusion / Cartas de Amor y Desilusión gathers poems that speak directly to the people who’ve shaped a life: a mother, a sister, friends, colleagues, lovers, and the younger self. That range gives the collection its emotional foundation. In “A Mother’s Love” and “A Sister’s Forgiveness,” affection comes with apologies and an awareness that care has a cost. “Leader” and “New Beginnings” extend that care into work with young people and families, showing how love can become encouragement, service, and a reason to grow. The mother’s reply in “A Mother’s Only Son” is an especially welcome turn. For a moment, the person writing so many letters becomes their recipient, and we hear the worry and devotion surrounding him.

The English and Spanish poems appear on facing pages, giving readers two ways to enter each relationship. Reading across them, you can hear shifts in rhythm and emphasis: the English of “300 Miles” stretches into elaborate promises, while the Spanish moves through a quicker sequence of intimate questions. Throughout the book, Garcia favors direct address, familiar speech, and repeated openings. In “Even Though,” repetition allows affection to persist through distance and uncertainty. In “Anxiety,” the same device piles up pressures until the closing appeal for a friend’s relief feels earned. Flowers, sunlight, skin, and the sea provide a recurring vocabulary for attraction and renewal. The poems are easy to follow, and their conversational delivery makes them feel addressed to someone specific.

The second section changes the emotional temperature. Biblical and mythological figures, including Lilith and Medusa, turn romantic disappointment into stories of temptation, conflict, and escape. Faith anchors the speaker’s search for order, while his commitment to traditional gender roles gives several poems a stern, judging voice. There’s a revealing tension between “Temporary,” which recognizes that people can’t be owned, and poems that connect romantic harmony with a woman’s submission. At times, the speaker’s account of another person’s trauma becomes an accusation, making his tenderness feel conditional. That tension matters to the reading experience: we’re hearing someone who wants clarity while still carrying anger. “Lie to Me” is particularly effective here, because its repeated invitation exposes how willingly desire can cooperate with the deception the speaker condemns elsewhere.

What really resonated with me were the moments when memory unsettles the speaker’s certainty. “Tattoo” returns to touch, silence, and the knowledge that two people can matter deeply to each other while being unable to meet each other’s needs. Its echo of “Another Life” connects the collection’s two halves, letting an earlier romantic hope survive in a sadder form. “Letter to Myself” also gives the book a useful sense of proportion, placing love alongside family, education, past mistakes, and the continuing work of managing destructive impulses. Garcia’s strongest poems make room for that unfinished work. They give this bilingual collection its personal weight and its most persuasive reason to keep reading. Garcia gives heartbreak a voice that can bless, accuse, and still ache for the person it’s trying to release.

Pages: 132 | ISBN : 6316688369