Love is bliss, and romance and ecstasy and safety and comfort and beauty and invitation and reciprocation and open doors and social justice and listening patiently and consent and freedom and acceptance and light.

Love is too confusion and longing and sorrow and get out, stay out and smothering and frustration and judgment and isolation, expectation and insecurity and grief and disappointment and loss and shame and confinement and desperation.

Or...is it? Perhaps, love is only a word.

Maybe it is our own bliss and romance, our own confusion and longing. Perhaps Love is a symbol, as all words are. But even more, is it a scapegoat for our most misunderstood and oftentimes embarrassing feelings and actions? Feelings and actions we may be too afraid or lazy to more clearly define?

Perhaps we do it all for love. Or, perhaps we do it for ourselves and love... is only a word. What would love become if we paused to reflect onto ourselves what we project onto it?

I don’t know for sure, but I do wonder. Explore with me.

Letters of Fear & Love is an investigation into love. For many, love remains a source of fear, confusion, and suffering. Aguiñaga encourages us to ask ourselves why, and imagine how we can redefine love for the better. This eclectic compilation of poetry, philosophical prose, and love letters invites you to explore alongside her, through the heights and depths of redefining love on her own terms.

Sophia E. Aguiñaga is a lifelong writer and philosopher. Tending toward philosophical inquiry and introspection early in life, she has spent countless hours using the written word to better understand how human beings connect to and interact with the relative world. Drawing on personal experience, and philosophical and scientific studies as inspiration, Sophia has devoted herself to bridging the chasms between pain and pleasure, fear and love, and the human experience behind them all.