My life started when I was 12.

I'd penned a poem about,

trees, I felt ink flow through 

my fingers like a breeze 

against the leaves.

 

The poem, I showed to my friend,

she told me it was disgusting,

terrible 

unoriginal 

worthless.

I threw it in the trash, 

at twelve I figured it out. 

My words are mine, 

and they are not,

my friend's. 

 

When I was sixteen 

I wrote about girls-

the pain of loving 

the pain of losing,

them. 

I did not show the poems

to anyone.

 

When I turned eighteen

I painted my poems in,

Technicolor! 

I wrote about-

love 

sex 

gender 

I wrote openly, selfishly,

for myself. 

 

Shamelessly at eighteen,

I thought the world lived in me-

in my journals 

my words 

my worlds.

And when someone begged to see 

to read 

to hear my poems 

I let them slip through my parted lips

like honey

and in that moment 

never once did I feel;

ashamed.