I grew up watching telenovelas, not a good idea for a young individual designed like a sponge soaking up information, I know, but it's an upbringing I wouldn't change for anything because that was where my love for stories began.

Impossible stories, if I'm being honest; most of it made no sense, but two truths were prevalent: Love always won, and the love we have for people never changes. I would see stories of how the characters met when they were little, some sort of orchestration of fate, and think for sure they were meant to be. So the villains would rage, schemers would plot, and the universal storyline of these movies was the same: love would win, so I grew with the mindset that love is the one thing we should always have in spades.

Herein lies the problem: the love was so inherently beautiful that I had equated love to happiness. In my mind, they were one and the same; if someone loved you, then you were happy. If you were unloved, there’s not much to look up to. And the irony is I never bothered looking for love, I lived with the notion that there’s an emptiness within that could be managed as long as I left space for the love that would one day come. That love didn’t have a due date because you can’t rush fate, but it definitely had to come.

I went on living like this until one day, I saw someone. A very beautiful human that all but altered how I think. My perception of love, life, and everything in between. Beautiful and smart, this person lived fully or as fully as anyone in their twenties could, knowing that there’s so much left in store even while still living in this beautiful moment or the “best years of life," as people refer to their twenties.

I disagree that this could possibly be the best years of life, because it requires so much searching, so much stumbling, and so many discoveries that it cannot possibly be the basis of “best,” or maybe the problem is that my description of best is warped. Maybe it's a crooked design that I assume will mirror perfection or having life finally in a straight line.

This person, whom I would later discover to be a poet, led me to a love that actually measured up to what I had in my mind, the completion I had assumed only a human could embody. I began to write line upon line of poetry. Verses that had an imbalanced rhythm and descriptions that were less clear than the actual pictures I was trying to describe.

I wrote and wrote until I began to embody the feelings I would like to convey. I had found my love—writing was it for me. Not another soul. Lines that let me share my heart, words that let me pour out my soul in moments I otherwise could not. I found writing, and nothing could separate me from it.

And with all great love stories like in the movies, there had to be an adversary. Mine was cloaked in black and identified as doubt. More self-doubt. I had put hours upon hours into writing. Days and months that transitioned into years, and I couldn't bring myself to share, as it never seemed good enough. I pondered on whether it would be enough to have a love only I could acknowledge.

Would writing be a secret love, an affair? An activity that blossomed only when there was no one else to see. Would I want that to be me?

Then doubt transitioned into certainty, not the good kind. I began to share my writing on different platforms for about two years and saw no growth; it was all cobwebs, and any interest my writing garnered I translated as sympathy. Like a stranger taking a chance on it because they could see deep down that this was just a writer trying so hard to be acknowledged. To be seen, known, and understood, and if I was extremely lucky - have a piece of writing that touched someone’s heart genuinely.

When it was obvious I wouldn't gain attention or any traction, I still wrote because at the time writing had been so entrenched in me that it would require a surgery to dig deep and uproot the part of me that would always pick up a pen to document everything, even when none of it was worthy of note. I would write, and with each new writing now that I had gone back to hiding, I would feel my love for it slipping away. It had become mechanical.

Was I falling out of love? Losing the spark that made my heart glad?

Is this what I know? Is my conviction that love is temporary?

So I began to write again, differently, really poorly. In a way, it was only desirable to me. I made myself my only audience. If it was imperfect, I had to love it anyway. If it lacked the right flow, I had to learn to read the verse over and over to understand what I was trying to say. I sat with pen and paper. All I had to do was capture the love and everything else would be an added advantage.

The words did not flow easier; they felt fought for. Like an uphill battle, but I kept it up anyway; love does not give up. If it does, it wouldn't be the love I know. Love does not up and leave; it grows roots and plans to stay. Turns out all I had to do was stay, stay until the words bled out of my heart. Until the paper could predict what I wanted to say before the pen hit. Until words flowed as I sat with them.

My love was back and this time, I would have it this way. So now, even if I never publish a book or write the best poems this generation has ever seen. If I do not become like the greats or write poetry that’s good enough to change someone's life. I’ll stick with it because love is a choice, and I chose to write.

So I write daily, little things. Big things, things that sometimes get the notice of one or two people. Never more than one or two. I read my own works and smile at my own lines.

Love was not a person as the movies had told; love could take any form, and so love grew as I learned to grow with it.