‘Etched Into Me’ by Trupti Takmoge
Author Interview
What inspired you to write Etched Into Me? Was there a particular moment, memory, or emotion that pushed you to capture these feelings in poetry and reflections?
Etched Into Me didn’t begin with a single defining moment or dramatic turning point. It grew slowly, from accumulated weight — from the quiet kind of pain that doesn’t announce itself but settles deep within you. I carried emotions I didn’t know how to name and experiences I didn’t know how to explain, even to myself. I wasn’t breaking loudly; I was unraveling in private, learning how to function while holding so much inside. Writing became the only place where I could be honest without interruption or judgment. Poetry held what my voice could not. Each piece was written not with the intention to publish, but simply to survive. This book is the trace of what stayed with me long after the pain began to loosen its grip.
You describe healing not as a destination, but as a process. How did you decide to mirror that process in the structure and flow of your book (order of poems, tone shifts, pacing)?
Healing never unfolded neatly in my life, so I didn’t want the book to pretend otherwise. There were moments of progress followed by setbacks, moments of clarity alongside confusion, and I allowed the poems to reflect that truth. Some pages break suddenly, others pause and linger, and some return to wounds already touched. The changes in tone mirror my own emotional shifts over time. I let the pacing slow where breath was needed and quicken where emotion demanded release. Rather than forcing a clean arc, I followed the rhythm of becoming. I wanted readers to feel the messiness of healing — not the polished version, but the real one.
Many readers connect deeply with the feelings of heartbreak, loss, and survival in your writing. When you wrote those sections, did you feel you were bearing witness — to yourself, to others, or to a collective pain?
In the beginning, I was writing solely for myself — for the parts of me that had learned to stay quiet just to get through the day. I was bearing witness to emotions I had minimized, justified, or pushed aside for the sake of survival. But as the writing deepened, I began to recognize how shared these feelings were. The heartbreak, the endurance, the quiet grief — none of it belonged only to me. The poems slowly stopped feeling personal and started feeling collective. I realized I was holding space not only for my own pain, but for many others who carry similar weight without language or acknowledgment.
Was there a poem or passage in this book that felt the hardest to write? Why? And was there any poem that felt cathartic, or even healing, to write?
The hardest poems were always the most honest ones. The ones where I couldn’t soften the truth or hide behind beauty. They forced me to confront where I stayed too long, where I confused familiarity with love, and where I abandoned myself in the process. Writing them felt exposing and emotionally exhausting. Yet, there were also poems that felt deeply cathartic. They didn’t offer closure or solutions, but they allowed me to finally exhale. In those moments, writing felt less like remembering and more like release. That quiet relief, even without resolution, was healing in its own way.
Sometimes healing involves revisiting painful memories. In writing Etched Into Me, did you find that revisiting your scars was itself part of healing — or did it reopen wounds? How did you navigate that balance?
It did both. Revisiting old memories initially reopened tenderness, like touching scars that hadn’t fully healed yet. There were moments when the emotions felt raw all over again. But suppressing those memories had already done its own damage. Writing gave the pain movement instead of letting it stay lodged inside me. I learned to listen to my limits — to pause when necessary, to step away when a poem had done enough for the day. Healing didn’t come from forcing myself through everything, but from approaching the truth with gentleness and self-respect.
How do you imagine readers who have experienced trauma engaging with this book — do you hope it offers them solace, validation, or something else?
I don’t imagine "Etched Into Me",as a book that fixes or explains pain. I hope it offers companionship instead. I hope readers feel less alone in their emotions and less broken for needing time to heal. I want them to know that their pain doesn’t need to be justified or minimized. If they find language for something they’ve carried in silence, or see themselves reflected without judgment, then the book has done its quiet work. Sometimes being seen softly is more healing than any answer could ever be.