Book Review: 13th Breath by Sittie Cates

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13th Breath: A Collection of Poetry and Prose is a book of poems and essays by Filipino author Jacqueline Cates Flaviano, more known in the blogging and online writing community as Sittie Cates. Specifically, it consists of seven poems and six essays dealing with a variety of subjects such as love and loss, friendship, dreams and many others. As the book is autobiographical in nature, it gives us a picture of the woman behind those words as she travelled from her younger days to her present adult life. It is more like a series of her reflections with ripples that can certainly touch the heart of the readers.

Now

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Now I feel the most profound pain

As the afternoon colors fade and dim

My heart aches a loss, a regret,

Melted by the sun’s gentle warmth

Into the horizon, it sinks.

Now I see the flowers wither

In the soft earth where they always flourished;

The rose pressed between my palms

Had dried, brittle, suddenly blown

Into somebody else’s palms.