The first time I ever thought of poetry was in fourth grade. It was a year after my favorite person, my great grandmother, had passed away. My class was assigned to write a poem about our families. I entitled mine "Dark Ages." It was about my family joining together in dark times. I was the only student in the whole class who did not say my family was a rainbow. I was also the only one who received an A+.

I never really thought I liked writing. I was good at it, and I was creative, but I never felt like I had anything to say. I only ever pictured writing as formal essays and I hated writing essays. They always made my hands hurt, but I would win contests and get good grades on them. I thought only nerds liked writing, and yeah, I was kind of nerdy, but I didn’t want to be identified as that.

The second time I thought of poetry was in junior high. Junior high got to be pretty rough for me. My father lost his job, and my family was strained because of it. My friends I had known since preschool started excluding me from hanging out and eventually began to bully me. I was all alone. I felt like I had no one to talk to. I developed depression, and kept to myself about it. I made a friend in my seventh grade English class, my teacher, Mrs. K. My class only had 13 students so Mrs. K got to know all of us very well, and she modified the class to whatever we wanted. It was the best class I had in junior high.

A few months into the school year, my English class read S. E. Hinton’s "The Outsiders." I felt like an outsider in my school, so I really enjoyed the book. Ponyboy recited “Nothing gold can stay,” the poem by Robert Frost. Mrs. K saw how drawn I was to the poem and checked out "The Poetry of Robert Frost" for me to read.

I finished it in one weekend. I began to copy the poems into my journal until they became second nature. I recited them to myself all of the time. When I walked into her class on Monday, I asked Mrs. K to recommend another book, but she told me not until I wrote my own. I wrote about change. Then she introduced me to Eliot, whose haunting versus still find their ways into my writings today. I wrote about hope.

Suddenly, I was too busy writing to be depressed. I eventually got better. I wrote whenever I felt anything, I couldn’t imagine a time before I wrote. I also fell in love with writing because it allowed me to make sense of my thoughts, and it almost made them real. When I wrote a poem, it came to life. I could visualize it and process it much easier than just trying to keep it within myself. Writing has significantly lowered my anxiety.

Since my seventh grade class, I have won two contests, and have had three pieces published in print (and counting). I have published my own writings online, and a good friend of mine created a Twitter dedicated to our poems on which we collaborate. As an almost-sophomore in college, I still write, even if I don’t always have time for it, time will be made.

Writing will always be a huge part of who I am. Looking back on it, I am forever grateful for Mrs. K. If she hadn’t handed me that book, I wouldn’t have been able to write this article. I am proud to be the nerdy kid who loves writing. I am even more proud to say that I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost