Hazy Verses and the Surrealism of Growing Up

When I was a kid, I saw life as an adventure—one I was almost always prepared to undertake. An avid reader, I saw myself in the eyes of fantasy heroes: young protagonists who, while often knowing little about their world or the journey ahead of them, leapt faithfully into their fate. I wasn’t afraid to try and fail, in large part because I was lucky enough to have grown up with a strong-knit community who believed in me. With this confidence, I took on a daunting project: writing a fantasy novel of my own.

My mind swirled with stories. I desperately wanted to join the ranks of the authors who had brought so much joy to my life, in the hopes that someone else might resonate with my inventions in a similar way. I spent years crafting my novel, The Shadow in Her Pocket, a Middle Grade, high-fantasy story from the perspectives of three young girls on a magical island. Swirling with monsters and battles, my book debuted when I was sixteen years old. I was overjoyed. In many ways, what had been a lifelong dream of mine had come to fruition.

But as my novel had grown, so had I. As I learned more about myself, it became clear—both to myself and to those around me—that who I actually was as a person was never going to align with other people’s expectations of me. While I had people who supported me regardless of their preconceptions, many, including those who mattered most to me, transformed into completely different forces in my life. The same voices who had once lifted me up became ones who, for a long time, destroyed my self worth.

For the first time in my life, I was faced with intense efforts to “fix” fundamental and unchangeable parts of myself. And, to make matters worse, my health issues deteriorated, causing me to cycle between all-encompassing symptoms, bouncing from one doctor’s office or medication to another. Life stopped making sense to me. Everything I had once known, had turned on a dime. My reality felt amorphous and unsteady.

My instinct when dealing with difficult times was to turn to reading, like I always had. However, the solace I had once found in many of my favorite books felt somewhat hollow. The Hero’s Journey suddenly felt so far from my truth. My life wasn’t linear. It was messy and confusing. I was forced to constantly question my own perception. So, I began to look to contemporary poetry—not for escape, but for understanding. To be clear: I sought to understand nothing. I drank in uncertainty and unreliability, seeing my own swirling thoughts mirrored in the hazy words. I buried myself in the fevered, melancholic passion of Richard Siken, or the joyfully bizarre slice-of-life scenes detailed by Jose Hernandez Diaz, or the form-bending, dreamlike family histories portrayed by Diana Khoi Nguyen.

My venture down a new avenue of literature sparked a revelation for me: the conventions of writing are suggestions, not law. Words don't have to be understood to be appreciated. And there are so many layers of understanding beyond what is touted as logical or correct. I began to toy with the idea that the meaning of a piece was defined as much by readers as by writers. And I began to put my words to the page again—only this time, in verse.

Novel writing is an entirely different beast from writing poetry. While I had a long history and background of writing, I was eluded by the skill of writing poetry I was happy with. I had been a part of a poetry creative writing camp when I was seven, and a part of a poetry club in my middle school, but it had been years since I had touched the craft, and I had never taken it as seriously as my prose up to that point.

Truth be told, I felt like I was learning to write all over again.

But there was something thrilling about plunging into the world of words in a way that felt scary and new. Plus, it was cathartic to express myself in such an intensely vulnerable way. Even when no one else in my life would lend me an ear, the page was always there for me.

When I heard about The Hearth, a literary magazine aimed specifically towards youth writers on the topic of mental health, I knew I had to submit. The majority of my early work centered on themes of mental health, and I was excited by the idea of having my work surrounded by the work of other teen creators with similar philosophies. Ultimately, The Hearth accepted one of my poems for their collection, and I remember feeling so seen. This experience pushed me to keep creating more poetry because I knew that there were people out there who believed in my verse.

Over time, I developed and honed my poetic voice to a point that I’m truly proud of, and I hope to continue shaping it for as long as I am able. I’ve now published my poems in a variety of publications, including Diode, Apogee, La Raiz Magazine, TIMBER Journal, and elsewhere. I also ended up serving on the team of several literary magazines, including one that I founded, Alebrijes Review. I value my editorial work greatly because I remember how encouraging it was to have places to home my words, both with my prose and my poetry.

I’m now working on several collections of poetry, including a collection of pieces on the theme of soup. I find it personally important to attend to the whimsy of poetry. And, while I can hardly go back in time, I feel that in another universe I am able to tell my younger self that he would live to see his life become steeped with people who accept him for all of the facets of him. That while his poems of anger and hopelessness helped him make it through, one day his pages would unfurl with poems of love, and joy, and many more emotions than he could imagine at the time.

*Feature image by fran_kie (Adobe)