Hi, I hope you are having a love-filled week so far.

I published my first book, Because of You, in 2023. It’s a poetry collection about love. I started writing in 2017, and because of the encouragement I received, particularly from the WordPress community, I began posting more and stopped being afraid to share my thoughts, feelings, ideas, and words with the world.

Over the years, I’ve written poems about different topics, including pain, grief, hurt, heartbreak, self-love, self-care, motivation, injustice, race, rights, movies, and series, pretty much everything. However, for my first poetry book, I decided to focus on love.

Love surrounds us. It’s in us and it’s with us. We crave it, give it, and hope we never lose it. It is a fundamental and universal language that some people speak quietly while others process openly. It’s not foreign. It’s familiar, common, and deeply human.

I’ve written many poems about love in all its phases; When you say you don’t want it. When you aren’t actively looking for it. When it finds you. When you question it. When you are happy with and in it. When it betrays you. When it hurts you. When you feel safe in it. When you’re certain it’s forever.

I chose 100 of those love poems and brought them together in Because of You. The poetry collection follows a gentle flow.

• Desire and Interest: professing what you want.
• The Arrival: seeing it, experiencing it, questioning it, and being open to it.
• The Confirmation: basking in it, enjoying it, and embracing the “you and I.”
• The Assurance: looking into the future with the promise of forever.

I wrote Because of You for anyone seeking love, for those who may have forgotten what it should feel like, for those who know it well, for those who struggle to express their feelings, and for anyone who needs reassurance that their love will find them. I wrote Because of You for you.

You can grab a copy of Because of You through the following platforms:

Amazon Paperback and Kindle – Global

Roving Heights (online and in-store) – Nigeria

Because of You

Bade Books (online and in-store) – Nigeria

Flutterwave (online bulk orders) – Nigeria

Whether you’re discovering poetry for the first time or you already love getting lost in words, I hope Because of You finds a place with you. My hope is that somewhere in these pages, you see a piece of your own story reflected back at you.

If you have read Because of You, I would truly love to hear which poem resonates with you. Your reflections mean more to me than you know, and they remind me why I started writing in the first place.

Thank you.

Mariam Shittu