bubblegum heart is a raw and luminous debut poetry collection by Quazaye Konkel that explores the sticky-sweet ache of first love, the quiet devastation of heartbreak, and the resilient pulse of a soft heart learning to survive in a sharp-edged world. These poems hum with vulnerability, sensuality, and quiet rebellion-offering readers a tender autopsy of what it means to love deeply, lose fiercely, and still believe in softness despite it all. Spanning the emotional landscape of queer identity, longing, tenderness, and the ache of memory, this collection is both confessional and universal. With lyrical honesty and fierce emotional clarity, Konkel paints love not as a perfect thing, but as a messy, all-consuming force-beautiful even when it breaks us. From bedroom sighs and sapphire earrings to moonlit promises and emotional armor, bubblegum heart captures the bittersweet beauty of being young, tender, and entirely undone. Every page is a reckoning with the past and a reclamation of the present. This is a book for the ones who still carry the ghost of someone they once loved, for the girls who gave too much, for the hearts that feel like too much, and for anyone who ever had to find their way back to themselves after being shattered by love. Perfect for fans of Rupi Kaur, Blythe Baird, and Courtney Peppernell, bubblegum heart is a celebration of softness as strength-and a love letter to the ones who feel everything too deeply and love anyway.