I was writing before I knew how to curve the pencil to form a legible letter. I would pop open our printer, steal all the paper and scribble endlessly, all while seeing the story form in my head.

I went from being a young girl, lost in a fantasy as I watched trees pass outside the car window, to articulating worlds. Something about the mundane wasn’t enough for me, and fiction became my portal. As my brain got older and more complicated, poetry became the salve to my wounds, the translator for my abstract thoughts and large emotions. Throughout tradition high school, I never had the proper outlet for my ideas. Once reaching college and finally studying Creative Writing, it was like my dreams appeared in front of my eyes, real. The fantasy and reality were colliding. I used to believe that the best part about this field was disappearing into my ideas, but the creatives I’ve met in my studies are actually the best part. Fellow oddball adults who see things in metaphor, who grew up sensitive and lost in their imaginations. As I mature, it only solidifies to me that writing is my lifeblood. It fuels my desires, it extinguishes my fears, and it curates my understanding of people, places and things.