If you are looking for a poet who will bring the sweet overflowing honey of young love right to your lips, look no further than Fortesa Latifi. She captures the undying quality of young love as though she's at our side, flipping through old photographs with us, remembering. Latifi's poetry takes us on the greatest journey of all: the journey of finding love, losing it, and healing from the loss so that we may have the confidence to risk doing it all over again. While her work doesn't sugarcoat the pain, it makes sure not to dial back on the joy, either. Latifi inspires me to embrace all the possibilities in life and in love despite how terrifying it might be. Really, what's the point of being alive if we don't?
Her poetry touches on themes of love, abuse, heartbreak, and coming of age. She has written three collections (We Were Young, No Matter the Time, and This Is How We Find Each Other).
tell me everything and I'll tell you that the story of us
is something that will be told in the dark by a campfire with chocolate
melting between my teeth. they'll ask for a ghost story and I'll tell them
ours. I'll say, he did all that and still tried to say he loved me. I'll say my
hands are still outstretched from all I gave him and they'll say how did
you leave, how did you ever leave. and I'll say history is just another word
for how long I let him walk through the streets with my heart between his teeth.
— excerpt from "Tell Me How You Never Saw Me Coming" by Fortesa Latifi
