I am not a wordsmith’s daughter.

I was not born in breathless song, or wrapped
in a blanket of words, soothing my new soul.

I was born in daylight, with no storm in sight,
no beautiful prophecy. A man did not
stand by my cradle and whisper beautiful phrases
in my ear.
And I did not soak them up, was not fed by their
richness and liveliness.

I spent my days in solitude, mixing
words with play and laughing as they created
nonsense after nonsense.

No beauty was in them,

because I was not a wordsmith’s daughter.

I did not breath out words that leapt
across space and time, or words that
burned and tore at the heart. I could not place them down
so they could dance and fly.

I had to coax them gently,
encouraging them on, and building the flames
That pushed them forward, forward

always forward.

I was not a wordsmith’s daughter, but I became
a mother to words.

Fed them bits of me, and let them sleep until
I placed them on inkwhite paper, where I blew gently
on their flames, turned them ’round, and watched them
open up to the new world.

because there was never any gift, never a beautiful
spell placed on a tiny newborn child.
There were never prophecies that spoke of greatness, no
Tales of those who spun words as easily as breathing.

There was never a wordsmith’s daughter,
no beautiful gift,

but there was always the story
of a girl who fell in love

with words on pages,

and dreams in her mind,

with stories never told . . .



and so, she began to
write.