My writing journey has been a non-linear course. I’ve drifted away from it, I’ve come back closer, I’ve dismissed it in what felt like a permanent decision, to now feeling as if we should never be untethered again. However the journey went, underneath it all, I remained this kid drawn to the catharsis of creative writing and storytelling. Who, like a prodigal son, was met with open arms every return, no matter how far I strayed.

I wrote my first story at 9. A horror tale about five boy scouts fighting a demon during a camping trip. “Demonic Premonition” was three pages of pure horror, and after sharing it with my father, his cheer spurred me to write two, twice and thrice as scary sequels. The exhilaration of that first brush with writing stories visits me every time I write to this day. Before my own work ever began however, at age 6, a single piece of literature infused my brain with possibilities, and my heart with zest. 

“Que yo te quiero mas”, or “That I love you more” is a poem that details the transcendence of commitment to a beloved through any plausible limitation in life. My grandfather wrote it for my grandmother. His recital widened my eyes, soothed my ears and coddled my heart. At the time, his analogies sounded hyperbole and his metaphors astronomical but his depiction of love logged in me as a newfound way of expression as the words floated off the page and hovered above me. My discovery felt nothing short of Newtonian.

I left my native country, Peru, when I was 12 years old and in that very same year, in the midst of 7th grade, I participated in my first poetry slam. Despite it being in a language I had been speaking for just a handful of months, any suspecting fear or stagefright subdued as soon as I began my delivery. The intrinsic joy for the art steadied the shakiness in my legs and soothed any tremble in my voice. 

Through high school and college, the formal writing drained my motivation to write much else on my own time. Occasional projects that involved any creative writing or performance infused life into my flatlined relationship with school but my own personal writing and I had distanced from, yet never abandoned, each other. Like two ships that visit the same ports but are bound by schedules that never see them dock at the same piers, and limit them to only cross paths in the open sea. Ships who, although unable to make any contact, find temporary comfort in seeing each other’s lights amongst the fog and mist in their passing. 

Once out of college, being able to do it based on my own personal taste and appreciation, I gained back the appetite for writing. We haven’t left each other adrift since.

As I experienced any emotional growth, especially everytime I fell in or out love, I leaned more into my writing. It was in falling in love that allowed my grandfather’s poem, after all that time, to take its intended form. It was no longer a mythical tale or a script for theatrics written for dramatic purposes and from pure imagination. Each line slowly came down back onto the paper and their galactic proportions only seemed sensical now. It became personal.

 

Up until then I had understood poetry and other creative writing to be a way for human experiences to be decorated in grandiose depictions. Only to realize human emotion is actually what’s substantial and towering, and the writing is our attempt to merely put into words the vastness of what we could feel, if we allowed ourselves to. 

I debated sharing my writing until the dread of regret outweighed my fear of transparency. As soon as I made the decision most of my feelings, once heavy, became breathable; today they await on these pages for me to simply trace over them. 

Here’s to you hanging onto your own grandfather’s poems, whatever they may be. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Born into an extensively large family in Peru, Juan Alberto moved to the Bay Area in 2004 with his mom. He has been a San Francisco resident for the last five years, living accompanied by his peppy and coddled dog, Lima. He loves movies and tres leches cakes but struggles with the concept of impermanence.