My Dear Starling,

You’ve traveled quite a long way to find me here— I’m proud of you for choosing courage, for treading on. Look at how far we’ve come! Will you join me while we walk through this forest of my mind?

This place you traverse consists of various avenues leading through heart & spirit— my art, poetry, emotion, & faraway lands I have visited and ever long to return, the list goes on…

My journey of writing in the way I do now began in January of 2017. I took a poetry class on a whim in my last year of university. Before that class, I told myself I didn’t even like poetry— but the truth of the matter is— I just never understood it. I never understood what it could be for me.

That all changed when my professor, Arthur Smith, redefined poetry for me— he essentially gave me poetry. I can confidently say, without him, I would not the poet I am today, if even a poet at all. He passed away less than a year after I graduated. I was never able to say thank you in the way I wished— so I wrote a book for him. His likeness appears on the cover, drawn by my sister. Hopefully, somewhere, he knows how much he changed my life.

In my first year of writing, I never even called myself a poet. I didn’t think I had ‘earned’ the title. When I began sharing my poetry online, it was because of a singular moment, a singular poem of mine written at a music festival in March 2018. This poem is called “A Lost Letter to all Humans” and appears at the end of my first collection to feel anything at all.

I walked up to a man reading my poem, I sat beside him and didn’t say a word. I was curious, I was a little nervous, I told him I wrote it when he looked up at me with tears in his eyes. Once that stranger read my poem, once he cried and held me and told me it was everything he needed, I realized my words had the power to make someone out there feel less alone.

I now take this responsibility incredibly seriously. I am dedicated to you, as I have felt my reader’s dedication to me. This bond only grows the more I create and the more you read. I have been sharing my work in the same way since day one— authentically, truthfully— whether one person reads it or one hundred thousand.

My mantra is, and has always been:

“I am always trying to reach that one person.”

I know I am not able to save eight billion people from feeling alone, I will never be able to change the entire world. But that’s not the point— if I can reach ONE person. If a word, or a poem, or an entire book reaches one person and changes their own little world— somehow— for the better. If I can make one person feel understood, seen, like they aren’t alone in this— then everything, all of this is worth it.

Here you are, my one person, reading my words now. You are making all of this worth it. You are making my dreams come true. Thank you for being here.

Ever since I was little, I felt my soul was an expansive place— I thought maybe I did not belong here, but I have come to learn that its expanse is meant to reach across valleys and oceans, in the form of poetry and art and kindness— in order to reach you.

I feel alive when I’m creating, I feel invincible when I’m flying, and I feel human when I am helplessly in love. I don’t know where this path of mine will lead, but I hope you will hold my hand along the way— one thing I know for sure— it’s bound to be one hell of an adventure.

Ever Yours,

Rachel

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