Who Torments with Love?
(translation|modification of ¿Quién con Amor Atormenta?)
by Luis S. González-Acevedo
Who torments with love?
Who destroys the soul
with a passionate caress?
Pain doesn’t bewilder;
what bewilders produces pain.
Anguish, not of the body, but of the soul.
I sin because I kiss
with a pure conscience.
I do wrong by surrendering.
Who am I?
This “I” is a yearning,
a desire for the slavery
that only love imposes:
Desire to surrender everything
without withholding one single feeling
or caress.
Who torments with love?
I don’t know.
What am I? A pure sinner, a prisoner
who dominates his irrepressible emotion
and represses his indomitable passion.
–You can find the poem in Caribbean Poet, by Luis S. González-Acevedo or the original version in Spanish in Poemas Caribeños, por Luis S. González-Acevedo–