For several years now,
not only have I been a writer and poet,
I have been an author of books
of poetry and stories -
each one filled with expressions and impressions
of me, my experience, and my imagination…
for so long now, I have been using my instincts
and my innate gift to be able to capture
a moment in time and create something new out of it -
a poem; a story; a thought; a character;
a motivation; a power; an insight of inspiration
that has never existed before,
but also a combination of other things
that might have come before,
but reconstituted with my own voice,
with my own words, and with echoes
of my own soul interwoven within.

It was never a dream of mine
to become a writer and an author, until it was;
it wasn’t until fate guided my way
and gave me an opportunity to open myself
to the possibilities of the universe and the future
that I knew something had happened to me
and something within me had been awakened…
being a writer and an author
was never a reality that I considered -
until I started down upon this long
and winding path that had gifted me so much,
and has taken me to so many places,
and I began to realise that I was not like everyone else,
but also that I was not alone in believing
and knowing that I had a calling to answer.

While growing up, I loved language,
I loved stories, I loved books, I loved characters;
however never did I imagine that one day
I would create my own for others to read,
enjoy, and go on a journey with them,
as I have done within my thoughts,
within my dreams, within the words within my books…
while growing up, I always saw the silver lining
of every cloud in the sky;
I always saw the proverbial glass
as half-full instead of half-empty;
I always believed that everything that happened
always happened for a reason -
however that was before several
inexplicable, unexpected, and unimaginable
things happened to me and I started to use
my poetry, my stories, my art as a means
to decipher the meaning and the mysteries
that I sensed bound the fragments
of the tapestry of my life together,
and it was when I started to see
everything and everyone for what they are -
as inspirational in an infinite number of ways -
that I knew I was fully embracing my destiny
and my chosen identity as that
of the poet, the writer, the storyteller,
and the author Mark Hastings.