Pandora Horvath’s journey is one of profound transformation through the art of poetry. From her first heartbreak to grappling with mental health challenges, Pandora has turned her pain into a source of connection and healing. In her books, The Heart You Molded and Talks with the Universe, she opens up about her struggles with depression and personal growth, using her words to not only express her emotions but also to inspire others. Her journey is a testament to the power of vulnerability, showing that by sharing our most authentic selves, we can create meaningful bonds and foster healing for ourselves and others.
1. Can you share the personal journey that led you to create “The Heart You Molded, Talks with the Universe”?
My personal journey that led me to writing “The Heart You Molded” was from my first and heaviest heartbreak. At that time I was nineteen and devastated, grasping onto anything I could to ease the emotional stress. After a few months, I had a large enough collection and decided to share the heart break journey for anyone else possibly going through that type of experience. Years later when turning twenty five, I came to realize so much about myself and my life experiences so I decided to share another collection of poems that range from feeling lost, doubtful, and depressed to finding the joy in life and how lovely of a gift it is. I found myself healing through poetry and overcame many emotions while writing. Shortly after sharing “Talks with the Universe” I had many strangers online as well as old friends coming to me saying they found a poem that hit home. Some were happier poems, others more sad. Either way, it helped me truly connect wit others and talk about healing from the things we could not control in our lives.
2. How has poetry served as a tool for healing through heartache and depression in your life?
As a young tween I began feeling random spurts of sadness and never wanted to express it. So as I got older I bottled and bottled my emotions up. Once I took a poetry class my eighth grade year, I found that putting what I was feeling into a form of art made me a bit complete. After that I took any opportunity in school to write and get that freeing feeling in my chest. Coming into my adulthood I saw lots of poetry pages and decided I wanted to share my life in words also. And in doing that I have found true connections with others who have had similar traumas, heart aches, or sudden sadness and that alone has healed so much for me. It also gave some of the people in my personal life some insight to the things I felt or had lived through, but never wanted to discuss at the dinner table.
Overall, poetry has served in giving myself a purpose to connect and assure others that all things will come to light again, no matter how dark they are now.
3. What emotions or experiences do you hope to convey through your writing?
Through my writing I hope to express how difficult it can be living with a mental illness, in particular depression. My goal is to be able to create an image for all to see and understand the daily thought process, as well as the phases of depression. I often use examples of my own day to day depression, traumatic experiences mostly from prior relationships, and personal ups and downs. Each poem has a different emotion ranging from assuring and comforted to resentment to even hollow bellied sadness. Each poem is intended to convey the message of humanizing these deep emotions instead of ignoring them.
4. Can you describe the process of finding the right outlet to publish your work? What challenges did you face?
In my hunt to find a publisher I found that the two companies that wanted to publish my work were not as willing to let me keep a lot of my own ownership as well as did not want to give me even half of my own book earnings.. I found Barnes and Noble to be the best route for me, as well utilizing Instagram. Instagram has also been a great outlet as it helps you create more depth and creative visuals for people reading your poems.
5. How did you overcome the fear of sharing such personal and vulnerable writing with the world? Originally I was very opposed to sharing anything I wrote. It wasn’t until an old friend of mine had seen a few things I was writing in my note pad that she had asked if I had more. After seeing the feedback from her and how she had related to my poems, I gave her more. Shortly after I shared with more friends and family and grew a lot of support making me feel seen and safe to share my deepest inner thoughts for public eyes.
6. What role has mental health played in shaping your creative process?
Every role. As an individual with both Borderline Personality Disorder and severe Depression, each day revolves around my mental state. Often if I find myself very mentally drained, I write poems with a happier and lighter tone to try to lift me up. And some days I find myself more anxious or dejected and write more heavy and gloomy poems. A lot of the creativity in any poem I write comes from however my mental is that day, whether it be a good day or bad day.
7. Were there any specific moments or turning points that inspired the content of your book?
As my twenty fifth birthday approached, I was cycling through many unhealed versions of myself and found that I needed grounding. In searching for a way to heal, I found that writing poems about my childhood and first love really seemed to present themselves as unhealed and unforgiven. I realized I was not going to be able to become a better version of myself until I forgave the things that broke me. In the midst of forgiveness, I wrote “Talks wit the Universe” unveiling and forgiving myself and the things that happened to me.
8. How do you maintain your mental well-being while engaging in such emotionally intense writing? While I write many poems about loathing myself, or craving a different existence I always try to remember there is light. No matter how dark or heavy I may feel in the moment, as long as I fight to see some type of light, there will always be a balance. I always try to balance good days and bad days and display it in poems for people who may be fighting the very same battle. A lot of my mental well being comes from others expressing that I helped them see a new prospective or found something good while feeling lost or in the dark.
9. Can you share a poem from your book that holds special meaning for you and explain why?
This poem holds a lot meaning to me for many reasons, one of the bigger reasons is that I have always reached every length to please and nurture someone else before myself. Having BPD, I found that I would often mirror people to keep things flowing and at peace. I grew up in a home that had many conflicts, and I have grown to resent confrontation at any extent. I found out early on that if I made sure everyone else was happy around me, no one could fight. As I had grown older I grew more tired and aware that my family, friends, and partners would always come before myself. This poem was the best way to descibe how I was feeling when chasing everyone in my life’s needs and requests and I was running on empty. I wrote this poem realizing that I made it my life’s purpose to please, care for, and love everyone else before myself.
i often fear that
if i keep pouring
myself into you
that one day
you may find
yourself quenched
and no longer
needing the fountain
that i made for you
i beg that day
never breathes
simply so i may
eternally supply you
with every last
drop of myself
so please
remain parched
for my sake
– selfishly loving you
10. What advice would you give to other women who are struggling with confidence in sharing their creative work?
My advice to any woman who struggles feeling confident to share her work is to do it. Write your purest and most raw emotions, your greatest stories, and share them with the world. Sometimes the things we fear most are only a fear because we cannot see the beauty of it over the hill. Sharing your writing can bring you new comforts, new bonds with others, and new healing you may not have known you needed. If you have the gift of writing, or expressing there usually is some type of itch in your soul. So please, scratch it. You will feel so much better.
11. How has your writing evolved since you first began exploring poetry as an outlet for your emotions?
When I first began writing poetry it was a more negative and dark space. I felt I could not ever write something hopeful or glee. It wasn’t until I began writing less to express what I was feeling but more of what I wanted and needed to hear that I began exploring more optimistic and uplifting writing. Ever since then I have been finding more balance.
12. What has been the most rewarding aspect of publishing your book and sharing it with others?
The greatest and most rewarding part of sharing my poems was the community it built.. Once other people began coming to me and expressing they have felt similar ways to me or had related to a poem I had written, it began creating bonds and a sense of humanization. It truly created a safe home-like place for me to see that other people go through similar experiences. Overall the most rewarding part is that it has made me feel heard and given me a new sense of self.
13. In what ways do you hope your book will resonate with readers who have faced similar struggles?
I hope that readers can resonate with my book and see that although things sometimes happen to us, and that sometimes they are bad things, that there is always something good to come from it. I also wrote about body changes as a woman and how it is beautiful not scary. My goal in my book “Talks with the Universe” was to display that although certain events and uncontrollable traumas may alter your life, you still have the ability and strength to forgive and become a greater version of yourself.
14. Can you discuss the significance of the title “The Heart You Molded, Talks with the Universe”?
The Heart You Molded was chosen as my first book’s title because I wanted to encapsule the emotions and purpose of each poem. I chose that title because it was also a dedication to one particular person who had altered my perspectives on love at that time.
Talks with the Universe was what I had decided to title my second book as a majority of the poems in it are me talking to myself or expressing my feelings to try to get a better idea of why I needed to heal and what I needed to heal from. I went with the universe as my counterpart to my conversations because I spent most nights clearing my mind under the stars in my backyard.
15. What future projects or themes are you interested in exploring after this book?
A new collection of poems I am trying to build is centered around womanhood. In my last book I would touch on the feelings I had about growing into my new body as a woman rather than a teenager, and I think it was a topic I would like to diver deeper into. I firmly believe that young girls and women often have a standard when it comes to appearance and no one likes to find the beauty in weight you gain in your hips when you enter your twenties, post partum hair loss, a belly that’s grown a little flabby after entering a healthy eating pattern, the smile lines you begin to form over time, all of it. My next goal is to find a way to show womn how to feel lifted and proud of their bodies rather than depressed or unbeautiful.
With love always, P
IG: @thebedsidedrafts
