When I was a kid,

I loved to write.

I wrote the stars into the sky,

the smile on my mother’s face.

I wrote the words that my soul whispered

on warm summer nights when the only sound

was the streetlight buzz.

As a teenager,

I was captivated

by the lightning I saw

in poets’ eyes,

the thunder in voices

that cried out their sorrows,

only to be washed away with the rain.

I used to write love letters

that would never be read.

I wrote to a girl

with hairline fractures

in a heart made of glass.

I wrote to a boy

who stole the air from my lungs

like a blow to the torso

that knocks you from your feet.

That same girl left me in the wake of my confession,

shattered my heart the way hers never did.

That same boy assaulted me at two in the morning,

when the room was as cold as his hands

and the breath froze in my lungs.

It’s been nearly five months since I last wrote.

The words don’t flow from my fingertips the way they used to.

It is harder now

with a soul that feels older than time itself.

But,

at sixteen years old,

when joy seems meaningless

in light of what I have faced,

I have discovered someone

who reminds me

that writing feels like falling in love.