The Universe
A place that is exclusively yours, untouched, or rather detached from anyone you know. I found that place recently, and at first I wanted to share it. But I’ve come to understand the beauty of this anonymity is how quiet the world is, and I think I want to keep it that way. Hidden, a place only for me, at least for now.
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Making Dinner
Imagine a big exhale after a long day. That moment when you pull the pan and cutting board out, put the apron on, and all you focus on for the next hour is dinner. How a warm plate of food can wash away all your anxiety, can make you feel at home again.
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Redacted Poetry
I always say the best writing comes from the words that effortlessly make the page. We don't write when we're bored, we write when we intensely feel. I like raw writing, it's real, refinable, it's the canvas of every great piece of poetry. I would imagine most first drafts of poetry are raw, or else we wouldn't have written them in the first place.

I’ve written quite a few pieces that fit this description, and most are never revisited for public viewing. Don’t be mistaken, I like it this way: a perfect depiction of my feelings, frozen in time— a thought not meant to be spoken. As private as they are, this collection would be incomplete without at least one. I removed haiku one and three from “Uncertainly Certain”, and was left with a new piece, Redacted Poetry.

A fellow poet told me, “it feels like you carved the rawness down to its essence– it’s intimate without oversharing”. That’s what I wanted to capture. The moment you finish writing that intense first draft that’s too personal to share.
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Where is my Head?
‍The beginning of the End of 21. More often than not I despise rhyme schemes in poetry. It feels forced, and it takes me out of the lyrical content to say, “hey look at that, it rhymed!” But I love a challenge, the novelty of discomfort. Writing purely off of abecedarian structure, and a variety of ABAB, AABB, and ABCB rhyme schemes, I pushed into the unknown. I wanted the poem to feel organized in sound, but disorganized in content. Going through big life changes, this felt fitting.

But don’t be mistaken, every word was carefully chosen for this piece. This is not some slop that came out of a writing challenge. I felt every adjective, every verb, every emotion, and every sentence. "Where is my head?" is about uncertain futures, feelings that make you question right and wrong, not knowing if you’re flying or falling. Hesitancy, anxiety, fear of the unknown, next to excitement, freshness, and moving forward.
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Dear Tomorrow,
A letter to Start of 22, from End of 21. Twenty-Two years ago we were born on the 22nd. Must be a sign.

Every birthday is a new year, a new me, a new us. I can’t wait to see what you do.

I wonder if you’ll add to this poem, Tomorrow.
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Haiku
If you’re not paying attention, you’d probably miss that most of my poems are written as a collection of haiku. Haiku’s structure is a tercet with strict syllable rules for each line: five, seven, and five again. It helps me navigate what I’m feeling, what I want to say, how I want to say it. I would imagine I wouldn’t write nearly as much if I were left to my own infinite thoughts. 
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Art of a Stranger
Collections are interesting to me because they give repetition. Each choice, each creative decision is a brush stroke, and the whole paints a picture, tells a story, weaves a narrative. So when a stranger asked me to turn the corner and check out their senior art show, I said yes. Traversing your mind was eye opening, Valden– thank you for sharing. I wish you the best with your art career now that you’re moving into this exciting new chapter in your life post university.
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r/21stCenturyHuman
"r/21stCenturyHuman" is about the experience of living in the digital age. Most people think about social media as an online projection of their real world image: instagram, tiktok, even spotify, each a glimpse of the "IRL-self". Instead, think about a profile completely separate from your own world. For me, that account exists on Reddit.

Did you know that Reddit has over a billion active monthly users? That’s almost an eighth of the world’s population, and I’m posting to an account without a face, with a randomly generated name, not a trace to my personal social media. It’s completely detached; I can say anything I want to say to strangers who only see me for what I post. Passions I could geek about for hours, feelings too personal to share with my own community. A diary, for the faceless.
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Akira & Adrienne
Akira & Adrienne, Bright & Dark One, is about growing as an individual. Recognizing a time in my life when I was alone, in a city far from my family and community. When I knew how to navigate the world, but was unable to satisfy my longing for connection. As the years have passed it felt like I discarded the former the more I pushed into the latter.

Akira & Adrienne is about navigating that duality, how leaving loneliness can turn into a fear of loneliness. Especially when those connections that became an integral part of you start to break, and you can’t tell if it was your own doing. Akira and Adrienne, light and dark, relearning self love— without shaming the need to connect.
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