I've been writing since I was eight years old, starting with creating my own fairytale type of story. Fantasy and Contemporary have always been my genres of comfort, but poetry is one that I put aside as I believed I wasn't any good with it. I have tried to write poetry again and again over the years, but I lacked a grasp of the metaphors and rhymes that I thought poems needed to be good. So I just stuck a pin in the genre and shoved it to the side with the other kinds of stories I knew I wasn't ever going to be good with like self-help and spiritual. Every now and then I try my handwriting poems, but I always get stuck on if I'm being metaphorical enough or how to reword my thoughts to force a rhyme. It frustrated me beyond belief, more so after I started reading some modern poets like Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace.

That was the push for me to enroll in a Poetry class at college because I knew the course would push me to set aside what I think and know about the genre. Over the weeks I relearned structures I already have experienced with and studied new formats; my confidence in my skills grow as Professor Inglett removed the need for dramatic language and rhyming. Without these restrictions, I was able to see poetry in a new light and strip down to its overlooked foundation- the poet's emotions and experiences.

So this collection is built upon those fundamentals with other parts of my journey woven in- memories, regrets, observations, and more. Even though some of these poems are personal, I hope anyone reading this can relate to the subjects I've written about and can find comfort in them as I have with Kaur and Lovelace's work.