In Reference To My First Written Work

Sitting in my bedroom, a makeshift space in the attic of my middle school home, I couldn’t help but think about the news I just heard a few hours ago. Distraught from hearing my grandmother passed away, I couldn’t quite process it. I didn’t cry, I certainly wasn’t happy, I just remained sitting at the edge of my bed in silence. This would become part of my daily routine for less than a week, up until her funeral. But about a day or two before that would happen, I finally decided to open my journal for the first time in a week and try and write something.

I wasn’t sure what. Maybe just another “how’s my day been” entry, or perhaps something about RuneScape or some other game I was playing at the time. Instead, I tried my hand at poetry and tried to write one for her. From there, everything seemed to change in my life, not just with writing. Before this, I had written silly “how-to” guides and poorly drawn sketches about what happened in class, but now it was like I had to convey something I just couldn’t say. After I finished the poetry piece I finished, I remembered showing it to my mom (my grandma’s daughter) and her trying to conceal her tears while she hugged me.

To this day I don’t remember what exactly I wrote. To sound lighthearted: it was probably bad; I might even laugh if I ever read it again. I recall it was something about how she was too good of a person to be taken so soon. With all the vices in the world, how was she the one to pass away in her sleep? To this day I still don’t know, but I like to think that who or whatever it is that runs the universe has a good explanation. There may have been a couple other references to how we used to drink tea together, but that was the gist of it.

Since then, writing has changed for me drastically. I continued to pursue poetry as a short-hand method of expression and as I grew older tested the waters of other writing fronts (short stories, novels, technical writing, etc.). Writing about my favorite games or career interests is enjoyable, but deep down I know the real passion is being able to shape how I feel on paper precisely how I want it, like being able to pull a spoken sentence from the air and cross out the mispunctuation.

I’ve yet to try and write another poem about my grandma since. For clarity, I have written about her, and have composed and written songs about her, but I don’t think I’m ready to rip the band-aid off by making a more mature attempt at a poem. I don’t think whatever I could say would detail just how much I miss her.

The main difference I would say between my writing then and now would be the level of innocence I had towards it. A child growing up in a privileged family would write much differently than a mature enby who’s since undergone hard times. Not that I would call myself any different than most other people’s upbringing, but at least writing gave me a way to document and process all that’s happened. Since writing my first real piece of literature, I started to respect the art form itself and developed a passion for learning why so many of us would spend hours each day at a notebook or keyboard. Why would someone go to school for English, only to go back into school to teach it? Why study various texts about different cultures when your own could last for hundreds of lifetimes?

Because it’s what defines who we are. Each person has a voice with a story that makes us human. It’s our duty as writers to explore our differences and create something that can’t be put into words.

And back then, I was a little child who lost their grandma, who wanted to write how I felt.

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Writer’s Endnote:

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

If you enjoyed it, consider checking out my other works on Gamer Empire, Wattpad, Medium, Vocal, as well as freelance services on Fiverr and Upwork!

Thank You For Your Time,

-Kadence <3