Our lives are stories
within an epic and ever-evolving,
ever-changing, ever-continuing poem
that started at the moment
that the universe began;
my own life has changed over time –
as I have grown, experienced,
thought, and felt, the world
and everybody whom I have met
has contributed into making me
who I am now at every turn;
we are more free to be who we want to be
when we are young and when we know nothing
about the need of adults to make plans;
I always knew that I had an energy
and a passion within myself –
however, it is only since I began
writing poetry and stories
that I have felt as if I were able
to allow the inspired fire
within my heart to burn.

I can still remember
the first poem I ever wrote;
I can still recall
where I was when I started
to put together the poems
and the pages and the images
of my first book;
I can still feel what it was like
when I knew that I had a gift
and that I could use words
to express my feelings
like a musician makes music
by playing notes;
I can still sit, stare,
and hold my pen and my notebook
in my hand and relive
the experience of inspirations magic touch.

Every time that I unveil
a new poetic-offspring of mine,
to me it is like seeing
the face of your own child smile
for the first time;
every time I start writing
and the words flow
and come fast like the water
of a raging-river,
the light and the energy
that binds everything together
starts to shimmer;
every time I am inspired
I can feel something inside of me
fighting to break free of me
and explode like a cannon;
every time of every writing
of a new poem is like witnessing
the golden light of an unending dawn.

I still have to pinch myself
to believe how lucky I am;
I still have to look in the mirror
and marvel at all that I have seen,
all that I have experienced,
and all that I remember from my life;
I still have to find a way every day
to use the power of what I know,
but that which other people
might not at first understand;
I still have to daily accept
the awesome feeling of pride that I feel
in myself at all that I have personally achieved
and done – especially when I flick through
and I re-read and remember
all the poems that I have written
that have been published in my books…
I still find it incredible to believe
that not only do I have one book
of my poetry and stories published –
but, in fact, instead of one,
as I write this, I am looking at the cover
of book number five.