more than metaphor

i wrote this collection over a period of several months after moving back home to scott county, tennessee, from stuttgart, germany, in the middle of the global covid-19 pandemic. as soon as i returned at the end of august 2020, poetry quickly became my only outlet to make sense of everything i was going through in a way that felt honest and real. in the beginning, i would sit in my bedroom for hours, piecing together poems using magnetic poetry kits or sit in my backyard and write about how it felt to be there with my feet in the grass once again. i carried a journal with me almost everywhere i went. i built entire worlds with teeny-tiny words and discovered another kind of truth along the way - one that felt meaningful and sometimes even magical.

when i started writing, i had no intention of sharing these poems with the world, let alone publishing them in a book. but with the encouragement of some dear friends, my words eventually found their way onto these very pages. i finished the manuscript in may 2021, and i am both terrified and thrilled to be releasing this debut collection. more than metaphor captures a journey of homecoming, of returning to a place i never really left behind and using the power of words to explore all that such an odyssey entails.

i hope this piece of my heart finds a little place in yours. i am so grateful to you for giving my words a home.