Let thy Tongue Be thy Pen
Whenever I express my thoughts to someone, the person seems to become deaf; my words never reaching to their heart. Most people form the wrong impression of my true self, so I ask this question, “Am I speaking a foreign language?” I believe it to be true. Chaos rampaged throughout my mind with morbid thoughts and gloomy emotions consumed my soul. Thus my body transforms into stone and my voice slowly disappears, making it impossible to communicate with others. My heart has always been wounded by vulgar words, abandonment by friends, and death lurking in every corner. In front of others, I become mute with a vulnerable heart, so I created an invention. With a pen and piece of paper, my writing became an instrument to perform in front an audience. Writing became my voice and the word became my emotions. Life’s sufferings molded me as the writer that I am today.
During my childhood, life treated me with respect. I consider this to be the “good” or “better years” of my existence. Being the only child to very loving parents, I was always a loner. However, with the surrounding of loved ones, I never felt alone. My mother and I would always read books together; this bonded us together. She would read one page; I read the next. We read many books but the Nancy Drew book series seemed to have always been my choice of reading. Just like every child, learning new things fascinated me, so we read almost every day. However, when I first learned how to read and write, I had difficulty.
Akron Montessori School, in which I attended for ten years, was a small private school with only ten children in my class. But the more I went to that school, the dumber I felt. I quite often failed to understand a subject that I was being taught. In this case, some teachers yelled at me. They would rub their head in frustration trying to force me to learn the material. I tried to hold back tears but instead my body would tense from their brief despair of my failure to learn and my blank mind would try to come up with the right answer, but it was unattainable at times. This type of situation remained with me until the very last day attending that school.
My elementary years focused more on mathematics then English. My love for writing, however, started to manifest during those years. Whenever I had free time, I would write over-the-top short stories about my friends and me; traveling through crazy fantasy like settings and fighting nightmarish monsters. At the end of my years of elementary school, readings became my new obsession, but my life would abruptly change forever.
In this stage of my life, this is what I call the “bad years.” At the age of twelve, I lost my aunt to cancer. She was the love of my life and a beautiful, God-loving, devoted Christian that my entire family and friends cherished. A few weeks after, another death was inevitable. I lost my grandfather from the shock of his deceased daughter. My life started to spiral downward into depression that still lingers in my spirit. Everything changed: My life, my family, and at last, myself. Music, my friends, and more importantly reading saved me from most of my misery.
The bookmobile, as what we called the “Orange Truck,” became my great obsession when I started middle school. My soul illuminated whenever the bookmobile would drive into our school grounds. I read constantly; a book or two every week. My backpack would be stuffed with teen books. My mother would see me struggling as I carried the backpack inside the house; she joked with me saying, “You ain’t gonna read all those books.” I would laugh and my thoughts quickly become absorbed into those books. Losing myself in those books’ characters and storyline helped me cope with my lost loved ones. A few years later, my passion for writing started to ignite.
Every school day, from the seventh to the eighth grade, my classmates and I sat around a large table composing and producing short stories of different specific topics that we followed from the “Power of the Pen” guide. The Power of the Pen is a local competition for young writers. Our own little Power of the Pen inflamed my desire to write. I wrote a little over fifty short stories during my last days attending that school. The time finally came for our school to compete in an actual Power of the Pen competition. I didn’t receive an award, but I did receive compliments on my writing. On the other hand, my friends did come in eighth and ninth place. Even though I had a great time at my school, that school lacked teaching techniques that didn’t help me. Thus my chances of attending high school were slim. My mother decided to hold me back a year.
In the eighth grade, I attended Summit Christian School with thirteen kids in my class. The number thirteen worldwide represents bad luck and I certainly got that “bad luck.” During this time in my life, I acted as an insecure, timid child, so by this new behavior that I developed, I was heavily bullied throughout that year. I secretly suffered from depression and I lost my motivation for reading and writing. I anticipated graduation time so I could get away from that torture. However, that torture continued into high school. But this time it was deadly silent.
Throughout high school, I was alone. A nasty rumor about me spread around the school grounds of CVCA (Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy). Because of this, I lost many friends and my confidence, once again, decreased. With all this anxiety and depression, I finally found my true outlet; poetry. I discovered my true passion in my eleventh grade English class, taught by Mrs. DiPoalo. She instantly became my favorite teacher. Our class intensely studied poetry, poets, and different styles of poetry. Walt Whitman intrigued me with his free verse poetry and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
After graduation, poetry became a hobby. If I needed to express myself indicating that no one cared or tried to understand me, I would write everything down through poetry. Before attending college, I took a two year break trying to figure out what I need in my life.
Starting college has opened up new doors to different and amazing opportunities. I’m learning by finding new ways to develop my writing into something much richer than I had in the past. I feel a tremendous confidence in myself as a human being and as a writer. For my future wishes, I hope to become the best writer that I can be.
During my childhood, life treated me with respect. I consider this to be the “good” or “better years” of my existence. Being the only child to very loving parents, I was always a loner. However, with the surrounding of loved ones, I never felt alone. My mother and I would always read books together; this bonded us together. She would read one page; I read the next. We read many books but the Nancy Drew book series seemed to have always been my choice of reading. Just like every child, learning new things fascinated me, so we read almost every day. However, when I first learned how to read and write, I had difficulty.
Akron Montessori School, in which I attended for ten years, was a small private school with only ten children in my class. But the more I went to that school, the dumber I felt. I quite often failed to understand a subject that I was being taught. In this case, some teachers yelled at me. They would rub their head in frustration trying to force me to learn the material. I tried to hold back tears but instead my body would tense from their brief despair of my failure to learn and my blank mind would try to come up with the right answer, but it was unattainable at times. This type of situation remained with me until the very last day attending that school.
My elementary years focused more on mathematics then English. My love for writing, however, started to manifest during those years. Whenever I had free time, I would write over-the-top short stories about my friends and me; traveling through crazy fantasy like settings and fighting nightmarish monsters. At the end of my years of elementary school, readings became my new obsession, but my life would abruptly change forever.
In this stage of my life, this is what I call the “bad years.” At the age of twelve, I lost my aunt to cancer. She was the love of my life and a beautiful, God-loving, devoted Christian that my entire family and friends cherished. A few weeks after, another death was inevitable. I lost my grandfather from the shock of his deceased daughter. My life started to spiral downward into depression that still lingers in my spirit. Everything changed: My life, my family, and at last, myself. Music, my friends, and more importantly reading saved me from most of my misery.
The bookmobile, as what we called the “Orange Truck,” became my great obsession when I started middle school. My soul illuminated whenever the bookmobile would drive into our school grounds. I read constantly; a book or two every week. My backpack would be stuffed with teen books. My mother would see me struggling as I carried the backpack inside the house; she joked with me saying, “You ain’t gonna read all those books.” I would laugh and my thoughts quickly become absorbed into those books. Losing myself in those books’ characters and storyline helped me cope with my lost loved ones. A few years later, my passion for writing started to ignite.
Every school day, from the seventh to the eighth grade, my classmates and I sat around a large table composing and producing short stories of different specific topics that we followed from the “Power of the Pen” guide. The Power of the Pen is a local competition for young writers. Our own little Power of the Pen inflamed my desire to write. I wrote a little over fifty short stories during my last days attending that school. The time finally came for our school to compete in an actual Power of the Pen competition. I didn’t receive an award, but I did receive compliments on my writing. On the other hand, my friends did come in eighth and ninth place. Even though I had a great time at my school, that school lacked teaching techniques that didn’t help me. Thus my chances of attending high school were slim. My mother decided to hold me back a year.
In the eighth grade, I attended Summit Christian School with thirteen kids in my class. The number thirteen worldwide represents bad luck and I certainly got that “bad luck.” During this time in my life, I acted as an insecure, timid child, so by this new behavior that I developed, I was heavily bullied throughout that year. I secretly suffered from depression and I lost my motivation for reading and writing. I anticipated graduation time so I could get away from that torture. However, that torture continued into high school. But this time it was deadly silent.
Throughout high school, I was alone. A nasty rumor about me spread around the school grounds of CVCA (Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy). Because of this, I lost many friends and my confidence, once again, decreased. With all this anxiety and depression, I finally found my true outlet; poetry. I discovered my true passion in my eleventh grade English class, taught by Mrs. DiPoalo. She instantly became my favorite teacher. Our class intensely studied poetry, poets, and different styles of poetry. Walt Whitman intrigued me with his free verse poetry and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
After graduation, poetry became a hobby. If I needed to express myself indicating that no one cared or tried to understand me, I would write everything down through poetry. Before attending college, I took a two year break trying to figure out what I need in my life.
Starting college has opened up new doors to different and amazing opportunities. I’m learning by finding new ways to develop my writing into something much richer than I had in the past. I feel a tremendous confidence in myself as a human being and as a writer. For my future wishes, I hope to become the best writer that I can be.