Dear 16-Year-Old Sophia,
You can have made it. You can have made it with flying colours and will probably be proud to signify the rainbow flag. You can have made it along with your dream of being a novel, proficient, and printed poet come true along with your e-book three masterpieces! You can have made it right into a extremely regarded Master of Fine Arts Program, and chosen for his or her Teaching Fellowship.
But extra importantly, you should have made it as a human being—alive—whereas residing with bipolar dysfunction 1 for over a decade, and later post-traumatic stress dysfunction. You got that analysis of manic despair that terrified your future can be ruined. Yet you should have made it, and never tragically fallen into one other statistic. You won’t ever have a suicide try, however can have significantly thought of it a number of factors all through your life.
To have realized alongside the best way that life could be rather more than simply struggling, however on the identical time this will really feel infinite. However, for the sunshine to exist there have to be shadows. The unseen work you should have put in with many remedy trial and errors, with several types of remedy, with a hospital keep, with two residential therapy stays, with two supportive housing stays—you’re now residing your dream.
My prayer is poetry and poetry is my prayer.
I would like the world to know that we will do it with the best assist, care, therapy, and to not overlook the sheer quantity of will energy and dedication. I would like the world to know the way a lot effort goes into this. I would like the world to know we’re not lower than. That we could be able to residing out our desires.
I wish to say thanks for believing even when perception didn’t really feel there. I wish to say thanks for trusting the method and by no means quitting; by no means giving up. I wish to say thanks for changing into a robust voice to the underrepresented. Ultimately, I wish to thanks for being right here.
Love,
Now 28 Year-Old Sophia
Falco’s third poetry e-book: Chronicles of Cosmic Chaos: In The Fourth Dimension is forthcoming later this 12 months, and she or he is the creator of Farewell Clay Dove, and of her award-winning chapbook: The Immortal Sunflower all printed by UnCollected Press. She is the winner of the Mirabai Prize for Poetry, and she or he graduated magna cum laude together with the best honors within the Literature Department from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her Bachelor of Arts diploma is in intensive literature with a artistic writing focus in poetry. In addition, she has over 40 particular person poems printed in numerous literary journals, and magazines. Now Sophia is in a extremely regarded Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Program for Poetry together with finishing up a Teaching Fellowship. She is on her method to make her dream job turn out to be a actuality to be a Professor of Poetry.
Learn extra about Sophia—who’s a devoted poet since she finds poetry important to her understanding of the universe—and discover extra of her writing on: https://www.sophiafalco.com/ and https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/sophia_falco
Discussion about this post