With Valentine’s Day approaching, the topic of love increases in relevance around campus. Navigating what it means to love someone can appear daunting and full of complexities, especially during college. To assist with spreading love and solidarity, The Daily Texan compiled a diverse list of literary works about love written by UT students and sat down with the writers to talk about their different approaches to love. 

“Love in the Time of Cybernetica” by Claire Tsui 

“For me, love is always a hard topic to approach because you can approach it on the individual level, how love is to you as a person, but you can also approach the macro lens of love, which is the social and psychological evolutionary aspect of it,” said Claire Tsui, a government and economics sophomore. 

Tsui said she approached her piece on a macro level by exploring the power dynamics within love, adding that she took inspiration from the Pygmalion myth from Greek mythology. The myth details how a man creates and falls in love with a statue, which Tsui said she wanted to parallel with the creation of an artificial human being for pleasure. 

“I wanted to write about AI lovers, curating and creating perfect lovers, because the social implications of that are really interesting,” Tsui said. 

“An Open Letter to my Long Distance Best Friend” by Mirely Salinas 

“I never had a friend that I truly loved, and then I met Rose,” said Mirely Salinas, a human development and family sciences sophomore.

When her long-distance best friend from LSU came to visit Austin, Salinas became inspired to write this open letter in lieu of the reunion overtaking her mind at that time. 

“She’s definitely my soulmate. She is my person, and we connect on so many levels. She’s the only connection I have to platonic love,” Salinas said. “She just makes me feel safe and loved.” 

“Maple Syrup” by Breeann Conde

“It’s having that first college relationship, exploring what it means to spend the night with someone who has a completely different background and culture than you,” said Breeann Conde, an English junior. “Desiring them in such a new sense, it’s almost addicting.” 

Conde said her piece communicated her yearning not only for the subject but also for the unfamiliar yet intense connection and experience she underwent. 

“I really want my poetry to feel like it’s placed only in a specific time,” Conde said. “Being able to look back and hold those moments of time within writing is really important.” 

“Mother” by Keana Saberi 

“I wanted to chronicle the love (my mother and my grandmother) have shown me throughout my entire life and how I’m so incredibly lucky to have such empowered women like that in my life,” said Keana Saberi, a journalism freshman.

Saberi said she wrote this poem for Mother’s Day after the passing of her grandmother, who served as a pillar of strength in Saberi’s life and advocated for human rights in Iran. 

“I miss her everyday, but it always makes me feel so happy and warmhearted that I had that (love),” Saberi said.