Through Heaven and Back is a debut poetry collection tracing the rise, the fall, and the quiet resurrection of a heart in love. Told in three parts, these poems follow the full arc of devotion—its divine beginnings in true love, its tender unraveling in a fleeting, fragile relationship, and the soft grief that lingers when everything beautiful fades. With an intimacy and lyricism reminiscent of Pablo Neruda, Filipino poet Kristopher Perez captures the moments that lift us into the heavens, the aches that return us to earth, and the truths that surface when love slips into memory.
A tender and honest journey through passion, heartbreak, and healing, Through Heaven and Back is for anyone who has ever loved deeply, lost painfully, and risen—slowly, softly—with their heart still open. From first touch to final goodbye, these poems illuminate the sweetness of being chosen, the sting of being forgotten, and the courage it takes to feel again.
Pre-order through Barnes & Noble December 7
Available on paperback through Barnes & Noble and Amazon January 11
through heaven and back
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to the heavens
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a brief glance at the moon
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the grief of losing
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through heaven and back . to the heavens . a brief glance at the moon . the grief of losing .
About the
writer
Dear Reader,
I began writing somewhere at fourteen or fifteen, when I fortuitously discovered a beaten box filled with letters collected within the family - letters rooted in yearning, regret, celebration, grief, and love.
Influenced by the emotional depth and lyricism in these letters, I wrote to a boy.
A boy by whom I was so smitten. A boy who, at the very sight of him in the halls of Reno High School, would send my young heart into a flutter - and with that fluttering came a charge so intense, it was as if I was feeling, for the first time in my life, my own heartbeats. A boy who inexplicably gave my young heart a complex appetite for love.
But he never received the letter I wrote for him - because I never gave it to him. The appetite I had for him within the cavities of my chest was somehow satiated by keeping this letter to myself.
I wrote for him many times after that, quietly storing those words onto paper and back into my heart, where I have continued to write - for love - through now, into the last years of my twenties.
Outside of writing and recalling memories of my first high school crush, I find joy in acting and movies, watching world class cinema and films like Le Samouraï and Manila in the Claws of Light, and listening to opera and music in languages I don’t always understand - but always feel.
Above all, the true reasons I feel love so strongly stem from my family - my siblings, Alian, Gelo, and Jacob, and the woman who is the unbreakable foundation for all the love in between and beyond, my Filipina mother, Lilian. I love you, Ma.
With all my heart,
