Today I would like to stop to comment on a book of poetry that deals with one of the most universal topics, such as the lack of love, but from the everyday, from the daily perspective, stripped of linguistic impostures, verbal artifices; written from the man who loves and is no longer loved. The book that I would like to comment on is entitled Toxic Love by the Venezuelan writer, Leonardo Padrón.

Leonardo Padrón

If there is a contemporary writer known by all the people of Venezuela and not only by the intellectuals or university students of Literature, it is precisely Leonardo Padrón. More than for his work as a poet, essayist or chronicler, Padrón is known for writing many of the most famous Venezuelan television soap operas. Such is the case of the telenovelas Cosita rica, Amores de fin de siglo, The country of women, Lovers of the full moon, which have been sold to several countries and translated into several languages. Not to mention that it is currently one of the most critical writers of the Venezuelan government.

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Leonardo Padrón is a poet who has treated love in its many variants, from the love of a couple, a child, to the love of a father. But with the poetry book Love Toxic we see a lyrical voice that speaks from the man who is abandoned, who continues to love, who can not forget the beloved and cries for his absence. Interesting perspective, because we are not talking about one or two loose poems in a book, but about a whole collection of poems dedicated to this topic and, therefore, to this person. When we split and we are still in love with the person, the brain suffers a phenomenon similar to the withdrawal syndrome. Overcoming it requires initiating a process of learning and reorganization. With these poems we will realize that the lack of love never goes out of style and that we all suffer in a similar way. Let's start

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This book of poems begins with a poem entitled The Past that says:

I wrote
I recited poems.
...
I got up before the sun.
I danced on the terraces with my euphoric nose.
I was the hero of my urbanization.
the best.
I was walking
In you.

In this poem, the voice speaks of a happy, glorious past, in which life was good and easy. The enumeration he makes of the things he did, leads us to imagine a happy person, but who no longer exists. The title gives us the guideline, the verb in the past also speaks to us of the present. When I say that I was "the best", I let it be known that I'm not anymore. So many feelings are missed just when we stop feeling them.

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Unlike the previous text, in which we see a lyrical voice yearning for the past, in the next poem we see that we want to forget:

New Year Resolutions
I must walk until I meet
Count the ants on my pillow
Learning to tie the tie
Forget you
...
Run away from the red flesh like a Christ.
Forget you
Change perfume
Diet in January, business in February, payments in March,
Donations in April.
...
Forget you,
I insist,
Forget you
and that the months are the corners ordered.
where the sun goes with bare feet
and round.

The previous poem talks about a list of purposes for the new year. There are a number of things, jobs, tasks that the lyrical speaker wants to do in the new year. Of all the things he wants to do is to forget the loved one. The fact that the word "forget" is repeated several times in the poem indicates not only the need to do so, but also how difficult it can be to get the loved one out of the mind. If we stop at the last stanza of this poem, we will realize that, as in the previous poem, here we want to return to a past where life is easier, bearable, pleasant. Return to a few days that left with the arrival or absence of the loved one.

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The lack of love can also be seen from the humor, from the irony; the bitter side is more bearable when a touch of humor is placed at the sad instant. In the following two poems we can observe this variant:

Hospital
In the 21st century, war and melancholy are intact,
There are pills to prolong the liver,
Capsules to weave the memory,
Pills to prevent bone moth
…
There isn't a single recipe,
An imported cream,
A decisive injection,
That allows the loving to forget
The air that once swept through it.

The lyrical voice uses some images to refer to certain medicines that can be found in any hospital: pills for the bones, for the memory, for the liver, but in no pharmacy nor any hospital can a cure be found for the one who suffers from love; nothing that will make him forget the loved one.

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In the same style as the previous one, we find the poem Who sells me a plagatox? A poem that by the touch of humor, the tone of loneliness and sadness is appeased:

Your memory is the buzzing of a mosquito at midnight.
There is no more desperate metaphor.
It's a fact.
I must fumigate my life as soon as possible.

From the beginning of the poem, the voice locates us or tells us what the memory of the loved one is like: it is like a mosquito at midnight. So we can understand that it is not only a constant nuisance, but impossible to eliminate. Hence the title of the poem: the lyrical voice needs a repellent as soon as possible. In this poem the humorous metaphor is equivalent to that balm that cures everything and is used to pass the bitter drink.

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Love and lack of love are two sides of the same coin. The first one raises the levels of dopamine and oxytocin in your brain and makes you feel attachment and pleasure. The other makes you miss this attachment, and suffer anxiety and discomfort. Just as many of us have experienced falling in love, we have also suffered a lack of love. At this stage we have not only cried, we have become hermits, crazy and even suicidal, but also poets. It is said that when human beings are going through limits experiences, they may be more sensitive and perhaps be able to transmit their pain through letters. Many songs and poems are on display there.

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I hope the next time you experience disaffection, you sit down to write and you can get something good out of grief. Remember that you can vote for Hive account@adsactly as a witness and join our server in discord. See you next time with a smile. ;)