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the way that I love you,
then letting go for me
is the most impossible thing,
like cutting wire with scissors."
Boggio imbues her compilation with a wide array of poetry topics ranging from love, graduation, and seasonal poems to vampires, sharks, and mermaids. While many of her poems adhere most closely to an AABB rhyme scheme, the main driver of the poems is the speaker’s raw emotion injected by Boggio through vivid imagery and use of figurative devices. From the first poem, “Graduation,” readers will be able to share similar sentiments and connect with poems because of the universal relatability of the experiences. For instance, “The Hate of Winter” memorably captures the image of an individual snuggled in bed, dreading the thought of facing the impending frost as alarms blare, announcing the morning and winter’s arrival. On the contrary, “Dance of Fire” depicts the warmth of the campfire as an almost hypnotic, peaceful calm amid the background of night.
In poems like “The Pledge,” Boggio’s fourteen years of air national guard experience provide a solid foundation for tackling current events such as pledging allegiance to the flag. Using structural repetition of the phrase “I pledge allegiance,” she emphasizes that the flag is not just a piece of cloth but should be a symbol of unity and a promise of hope for all. “Feelings from the Inside” is the one section that is essentially an eruption of emotion. Poems like “True Feelings,” “With You,” and “No One Knows but Me” are an outlet of the heart’s cycle, from anguish and heartbreak to a resurgence of hope and love. The intensity of this section couples nicely with the nostalgia and genuine love exhibited in the “Treasures I have Lost” section. Boggio’s poetry compilation is refreshingly unpredictable with an array of relatable topics that never cease tugging at the heartstrings.