To Sandra

I picked up your books when I was young
full of dreams and naive optimism

Your words
with their beat of rebellion,
Showed a world where women
could be anything —
not just mothers
not just sheep.

I craved to be the
Black-Laced Bra Kind of Woman,
the girl with her own
Wicked Wicked Ways.

Instead I broke,
drowned, choked.

Ashamed,
I stopped reading your books
and they collected a layer
of dust on my shelves,
their pages growing yellow
with every passing day

But yesterday I read you again,
Devoured the letters, the metaphors
And saw that you were broken too

That between the conquests
the red wine and cigars
you were alone,
aching for something or someone
that never came.

And it got me thinking
if this is all women’s fate
to love and lose
over and over
and over again

Or is it simply that heroes grow weak
when one realizes they aren’t real.