Cinnamon Hearts
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written:  February 7, 2001

I am bitter
Quite bitter in fact
Not like the skin of a grapefruit
A taste closer to those tiny cinnamon hearts
Curved satanic sweets
That stain your lips pink
And inflame your taste buds
Tiny manifestations of affection
That rape your oral receptors
And say
I Love you

I have been sucking
And sulking
My cheeks are stained
With roses
I’ve had one too many red tablets
From the opium jar of lust
My addiction
It ruins me
For love
Is the only cure

These given to “lovers”
On the Day of Valentines
Valentines Day was aroused from two sources. One being two legendary Christian martyrs whose feasts were formerly observed on February 14. Historians can only speculate to whether they were in actual exsistance or whether the two martyrs are really the same person recorded twice under two names.

The second being the Roman festival of Lupercalia believed to have been in honor of Faunus, the God of flocks and fertility. Celebrated on February 15, the festival was supposed to ensure fertitlity of it was intended to ensure the fertility of people, fields, and flocks for the new year. After sacrificing goats and a dog on the Palatine Hill, young men called Luperci raced around the borders of the hill striking those they met with whips made of the goatskins. Women who were struck were ensured of fertility and of easy delivery of children. The festival survived until the 5th century AD