you still have yourself

A spectacular, tender-hearted poetry debut. “What do you have left after losing everything you know?” You’ve been told that it’s the cumulative impact of everything you’ve built: home, relationships, career, health, community. But the truth is much deeper. In you still have yourself, debut poet Fernando Samalot shares a contemplative collection of poems and reflections that follows an inner journey through loss, transformation, and return. All of these live inside of you: where wisdom resides. The Lover, who moves us through awe, devotion, and presence The Melancholic, who descends into grief, shadow, and solitude The Sage, who gathers wisdom through lived experience The Elder, who reflects on life from a future vantage point shaped by memory and meaning.Together, these voices form a layered portrait of a self in motion rather than a singular protagonist. Set within both inner and natural landscapes, the book moves through forests, rain, nightfall, dawn, and shifting light, using nature as a living mirror for impermanence, healing, and renewal. As the narrative deepens, what initially feels like fragmentation becomes integration. The journey resolves not with certainty or closure, but with presence. In returning again and again to the self, the book reveals its central truth: even when everything familiar falls away, there is strength, healing, and quiet power in having oneself.