I’ve always been the outsider.
The girl who dreams.
The girl who laughs too much
and cries too much.

But most importantly,
I've always been
the girl who reads.

I raised myself with books.
In words I found salvation,
in those rows and rows of
soldier-like words
I found my closest friends.

From books alone, I learned
about friendship and family,
and love, and tolerance,
equality and death.

Like a sponge, I absorbed those ideas
and words, and phrases,
and all I read about,
and when the time was ripe,
the sponge bled out
with all the words
it had taken in,
and its ink blood
covered myriad pages.

I am so young, just a kid, really,
and my life so far has been
just a pile of books I’ve read.
I want to change this,
to create a new pile –
of the books I’ve written,
of the worlds I've made.

Clumsy poetry and short stories,
and unfinished novels,
and the constant voice
making up stories and characters
in the back of my mind -
that's what I live for,
and the air I breathe.

I’m so young, just a kid, really,
but I know what I want from my life –
I want to write books and shape the lives
of other little kids who will pick up my
books, and read them, and learn about life.