LETTERS I NEVER SENT - A Thousand Tender Nights

I grew up in a rural village in Vietnam, in a family where my father struggled with addiction and my mother carried the heavy burden of raising six children. Deep inside, I always longed for a warm and loving home, a father to guide and protect, and a mother to nurture and comfort.

As I grew older, that longing shifted into a yearning for romantic love, as my heart began to awaken to its first tender stirrings.

The poems I wrote became sparks, small reflections of each stage of my life, each one carrying my search for love. They were poems never sent, born of desires I kept quietly to myself, of feelings that never grew into real relationships.

These verses echo my heart, a heart that once held silence, longing, and memory, and now beats with the fire of love. Some were written long before I met the one who awakened me, yet each line carries the tenderness I have discovered in the present. As an immigrant, poetry in Vietnamese has always been my way of breathing. What you read here are my own translations, sometimes imperfect, but always honest. These poems are not just about one person, but about what it means to be alive: to long, to love beyond fear, and to speak from the soul.

Now, in my forties, I understand that the image I was searching for was myself. And with that discovery, my love has not faded; it has deepened, becoming steadier and more serene. I no longer search for "him" to give this love away to. Instead, this profound love lives within me, unshakable and whole. In finding myself, I found love.