Kiara Shanay Lee
“You…write love poems?” one of my friends said.
“Oh wow, love poems, that’s different,” another friend said.
These were just some of the reactions I received from my inner circle when I shared that I wanted to write love poems — a far cry from my work on social issues like colorism, parental incarceration, body image, racial discrimination and more.
Now, I have to give them some credit. I’ve always been known as the fist in the air, on her soapbox type of girl. You know, the type of girl that calls out systemic ills like a woman scorned. The type that shows up to drinks with the girls ready to dismantle the system with dialogue, dirty martinis and a basket of french fries.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I have never been known as the hopeless romantic. I have never been known as the girl who writes about love in general, non-romantic love included. But although I haven’t been known as such on the outside, the writer on the inside was ready to reveal a side of herself that had been obscured from view.
Enter Kiara, the lover girlie.
I had been writing love poems for months. I had been dealing with feelings that only poems could thoroughly express – some old and some new. I felt like I had both the pen and the gall now, at the ripe age of 35, to write at-length about the many shades of love.
“But, I can’t do that.” I thought to myself. “I’m not a love writer. That’s just not me.” I was getting in my own way before I even started.
I needed a push. This is when my #28daysoflovepoems challenge/hashtag was born.
I decided if something is going to push me, it’s going to be an obligation to publicly share my work. And so I went on to publish a poem about love every day in the month of February 2026. The results blew me away. From a metrics standpoint, website engagement increased exponentially. Messages from people cheering me on – from my parents to total strangers – filled my inbox.
But it wasn’t the numbers that shocked me the most; what shocked me the most was myself.
I felt so unapologetically myself. I felt as if I was living fully once I finally started embracing this formally-suppressed part of me. It’s such a fulfilling feeling to go from keeping a big part of yourself completely under wraps to living it, breathing it and posting it outloud.
It felt so good to challenge myself to tackle uncharted territory – and to successfully rise to the challenge. February 2026 was a busy month for me. Some days, I didn’t feel like posting. Other days, I wasn’t feeling the poem that I planned to post, so I wrote another one. Then there were those days where I felt so silly – the days where I questioned the whole #28daysoflovepoems concept. The old thoughts of “this isn’t me” and the identity that I had unknowingly curated after all these years – Kiara Lee, social justice soldier with no other sides or layers – tried hard to steal my love poetry and my light. Despite it all, I won. I posted every day for all 28 days, not only here at The House of Psalm Magazine but also on social media. “Ah, yes, I did that” comes across my mind every time I come across one of the 28 poems I wrote and shared with the world.
I learned how to invalidate external validation. As I progress further into my 30s, external validation has become less and less of a factor in my life, both personally and creatively. This #28daysoflovepoems challenge really drove the notion of invalidating external validation home for me in the best way. I wasn’t concerned with likes and when I noticed people who I would have expected to support my endeavor absent from the likes and the comments, it hit differently. I didn’t feel a way. In fact, after a while, I got comfortable with it. “This isn’t about people. It’s about you,” I told myself in the beginning. And I really believed that. And still do. That’s when you are creatively untouchable. There is no greater high as a writer and as a creative. I don’t need other people to create. I need me – fully and deeply.
I tapped into a new realm of creativity. About 60% of the poems were already written. The other 40% of them came to be in the midst of life – work life, mom life, family life, personal life, etc. As I was writing new poems, editing old poems, sitting with God while I worked and reading “All About Love” by bell hooks, so many new ideas came to me. I no longer feel pigeon-holed or type-cast at my own direction, by my own hands. I will be writing more about love and its many facets. I feel like anything is possible with this newfound-freedom. I want every artist to feel like I feel right now.
Creatives: Promise me you’ll step outside of your usual genre, your comfort zone at least once. You don’t know what you’ll find on the other side.
And if you would like to read the poems from my #28daysoflovepoems challenge, you can check them all out here.
Whether you’re a writer, a painter, an actress, or if you don’t consider any fancy titles for yourself – you are a creative. No matter who you are, to some degree, we all create and we all need space to take care of every part of ourselves. I hope The House of Psalm Magazine inspires you to take good care.
Dr. Kiara Shanay Lee | Editor-in-Chief, The House of Psalm Magazine
IG: @thehouseofpsalm @kiaraleewrites | kiara@thehouseofpsalm.com
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