please look into the mirror
my sixth poetry collection out now
hi friend,
somehow, some way, i self-published another poetry book today.
it’s also my thirty-second birthday.
this book has been almost two years in the making, and in a lot of ways, the inspirations for it started years before then.
in 2016 i was spending a lot of time in the airport, traveling for work, so i ended up getting a nexus (a card that lets people who travel a lot go through customs from the U.S. and Canada faster). on the way home, after hours of traveling and exhaustion and the liminal space of it all (does anyone else always cry on planes? just me?) i walked up to a nexus kiosk and the first thing it said to me was, “please look into the mirror” in a robotic voice.
your voyage is ending, you have arrived, now–look into the mirror. face yourself.
it’s been stuck in my head ever since.
this book is the outcome of burning myself out, being undiagnosed and without ADHD medication for thirty-one years, questioning my upbringing, learning i never learned how to accept love, and ultimately finding the love, and the mirror, in everything.
i slowed down for this collection. i let myself come to decisions with time instead of impulse. i almost traditionally published it, but then realized that the whole process of selling myself in an archaic way is not what i want at all.
this is the first book in years that i worked with a designer on (the talented @parrottpaints). the first book where i let people into my process: conversations about colours and symbolism and meaning–with their support i really took the time to dive into the deep water of it all.
please look into the mirror feels like my most personal collection yet. it’s heavy with a new awareness that love is truly limitless, but so is the potential grief and heartbreak that come with accepting it.
even though i haven’t been very active on this letter or on social media this year, i feel very connected and grounded by your support, your mirror. grateful that i can have dark phases, that i can take time to reinvent and figure myself out, and that you’ll still be here.
that’s all i have for now, thank you for being here, please look into the mirror is yours.
xoxo
m