Borrowed Sentences

I didn’t discover Pablo Neruda in a library. Or in a classroom. Or through some earnest literature syllabus that promised to change my life.

I found him while scrolling. Pinterest, of all places.

Between aesthetic wallpapers and vaguely motivational quotes, a few lines stopped me cold. They weren’t loud. They didn’t announce themselves. They simply sat there, unapologetic in their softness.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I remember thinking that this man had stolen words straight from my mouth. Or worse, from that part of my chest where feelings live long before language arrives. I express myself on my blog, The Darkest Sunlight, and like many writers, I’ve borrowed from those who articulate what I can only feel. Neruda became one of those quiet companions. His lines slipped into my writing, my captions, my confessions. Not because I wanted to imitate him, but because sometimes someone else has already said it right.

His poems read like they arrived fully formed - the literary equivalent of falling in love at first sight. Effortless. Intuitive. Romantic. The kind of work that convinces you creativity is either bestowed upon you at birth or withheld forever. For a long time, I believed that was the whole story. The classic myth of the inspired artist. One muse away from magic. It turns out Neruda was anything but accidental.

He wrote every day. Relentlessly. Whether he was serving as a diplomat, living in exile, or moving countries with his life packed into suitcases, writing remained non-negotiable. He stood at the same desk. Worked at the same hours. Carried notebooks everywhere. His life was turbulent, political, often chaotic. His practice was not.

There’s something quietly ironic about it. A man capable of writing lines so tender they feel whispered treated poetry like manual labour. He once compared writing to factory work. You show up. You do the job. You don’t wait to feel profound.

The contrast runs deeper. Neruda, the shy child who hid behind words, grew into Neruda, the public voice. The lover who wrote of bodies and breath also wrote of war, hunger, and resistance. The same hand that traced intimacy could also point unflinchingly at injustice. Emotion didn’t dilute his discipline. It sharpened it.

At one point in his career, critics dismissed his work as obscure and inaccessible. Instead of defending himself, he changed direction. He began writing poems about ordinary objects - tomatoes, socks, salt. Things stripped of grandeur. And somehow, he made them luminous.

That shift reveals everything about how he approached creativity. He didn’t cling to a formula. He questioned his own assumptions. He took the depth he once reserved for love and applied it to the everyday. Creativity, for him, wasn’t novelty. It was learning to look again - slower, longer, without rushing to move on.

By the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, it didn’t feel like a coronation of talent. It felt like recognition of a lifetime of showing up. Of choosing words again and again, even when the world offered enough reasons not to.

I think about this often, especially on days when writing feels indulgent. When life demands efficiency, outcomes, deliverables. When creativity begins to feel like a phase I’ll return to once things calm down. Neruda didn’t wait for calm. He wrote through upheaval. Through exile. Through contradiction. On days that offered no romance at all. His brilliance wasn’t a spark. It was an accumulation.

And maybe that’s the most liberating part of his story. Creativity isn’t reserved for the chosen. It doesn’t disappear when you grow practical or busy or serious about life. It responds to discipline. To curiosity. To the quiet decision to keep looking, even when the obvious has already been seen.

Neruda didn’t teach me how to write. He taught me how to stay.

Stay with a feeling long enough to understand it.

Stay with a practice long enough to honour it.

Stay human in a world that constantly rewards speed over depth.

Because the most powerful art isn’t born from waiting to feel inspired. It’s born from showing up when nothing feels poetic - and choosing, anyway, to pay attention.

That’s the discipline.That’s the creativity.

And maybe that’s the only way any of us ever learn to love, or write, or live - without knowing how, or when, or from where.