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Shaouzen

Shaouzen

I can’t eat spicy food, darling

Love = Suffer?

Sep 27, 2026

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For six years, we’ve celebrated our anniversary
at your favourite Mexican-American restaurant,
sixty-seven floors above our city.

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You’d always order for me Chilaquiles drowned in fiery salsa.
You’d tell the waitress, it’s my favorite.
and I’d smile and quietly say, “Yes, it is.”
But my face could never lie,
it would burn red, sweat tracing my skin
with every painful i swallow.

And for six years, you’d still ask,
“You can’t eat spicy food, love?”
And I’d always whisper, “I never could, darling,”
though I kept forcing myself to taste what hurt me,
while you kept saying, “I’m sorry, I ordered you the wrong food.”

So after six years,
of smiling through what I could never swallow,
will it ever become worth the pain,
or am I only learning how to suffer
for something I love?

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