I began writing as a child. I know it’s cliché, but that’s how it began. Sitting alone, perched under a forgotten willow, I spent my lonely, childhood years peeling through the pages of weathered sci-fi novels.

It’s funny. Those books were my friends, my only companions. Sure, once, a few boys moved in next door. They rode bikes with silver tassels up and down our beaten, country road. I remember thinking those tassels belonged to girls. Actually, I remember thinking they should belong to me. But none of that really matters anymore. All that matters is that I was young, and I had ink.

Yes, ink. I had no idea how powerful it was back then. All I knew was that I couldn’t figure out how to speak finch. If I had learned to chirp to robins, I probably would have never cared about college-ruled paper or brightly colored pens. I would have just ran around the woods, whistling and chirping my cares into the ears of friendly, winged psychiatrists.

Actually, I wish I could have learned a feathered language. Sessions with a wise owl probably would have been less expensive than my current therapist.

Anyway, the point is that I didn’t have a ring of cardinals to spill my secrets to. Therefore, I picked up some paper my mother had tossed aside, and I began to ink out my first confessions.

Now, years and years later, I’m still spilling ink in the name of growth. The reasons have changed. No longer do I stare solemnly at blank sheets of paper, ready to quill the latest fracture to my heart. Instead, I tear down empires, and build characters that scoff at modern convention. The reasons to write are varied and numerous. They’re beautiful yet completely disgusting.

I didn’t choose to be a writer. The words chose me. I tried, over and over, to be something else. The other skills wouldn’t bloom. Now, I realize that my blood is rich with ink and my skin is pressed of paper. All that is left are words, and they’re spilling from my eyes, blinding me to all other pursuits.