Suddenly, like a gunshot in the very-near distance, you find yourself traipsing though a full-blown love story that you can’t find your way out of because the story is actually the landscape underneath your feet. It’s okay though, you won’t get lost– you won’t go hungry. Azra shakes every tree along the way so their fruit blankets the ground before you. She picks up pieces & hands them to you but not before she shows you how she can love you so gently it will feel like she’s unpeeling you carefully from yourself. She tells you that it isn’t about the bite but the warm juice that slips from the lips down chin. She holds your hand when you’re trudging through the messier parts, shoes getting stuck in the muck of it all, but you’ll keep going with the pulp of the fruit still stuck in-between your teeth, the juice will dry in the crooks of your elbows & in the lines on your palms. You’ll taste bittersweet for days.

    Written during the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine, the book is a reflection of what it means to yearn for people who are unavailable and how important it is to focus on self-love and healing.

    Sin comes a new voice, Samantha King’s raw, relatable poetry both celebrates love and mourns the human “curse to feel.” Her verse transports readers to the most private reaches of love and longing. Born to Love, Cursed to Feel is about love—the good, the bad, and the confusing. It touches on morals and how when emotions are involved it’s not as black and white. The poetry is frequently written in a narrative manner that evocatively pulls you in and makes you feel. This book is about falling in love, bad decisions, and ultimately growth. The essence of it all is to show that no matter how far one falls all the mistakes don’t have to be what defines them.