This Is How I, by Riley Danvers

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

What happens to hearts searching for love? What happens when hearts broken by unrequited and disappointed love keep searching for love? What happens when they find it? This Is How I is a glimpse into the mental and emotional struggle that comes from finding new love after losing old love.

Written from the perspective of a speaker who is actively falling in love with someone, This Is How I explores the anxiety and excitement and romance and uncertainty of a new relationship as it fills and moves through her body. Questions lead to searching which leads to reflection on the past and an honest exclamation of the desires she doesn’t know how to repress or confess. This Is How I is an examination of how vulnerability and the choice to keep pursuing love, even in the wake of continued heartbreak, can create a life that is beautiful, even in its imperfections.

Riley Danvers is a bisexual and disabled poet living in Portland, Oregon. Their poetry has been published in Z Publishing House, Silkworm, Clackamas Literary Review, Other Worldly Women Press, Chasing Shadows, Wingless Dreamer Publication, Poets Choice, Fox Paw Literary Blog, The Endeavor: Maiden Voyage, Wingless Dreamer Publications, and the anthology MOSAIC. Riley graduated with their M.F.A. in Poetry from Willamette University in 2021, and completed their M.A. in Literature from Mercy College in 2023. They just completed an M.S. in Professional Writing from NYU. Their debut book of poetry, Even the Air, Too Heavy, was published by First Matter Press in 2022.