I am six years old, misspelling my middle name. My handwriting is horrible. I staple seven sheets of coral construction paper, come to my mother clutching at the color. I have taken it upon myself to recount the birth of a bird in cloud-spat blue block letters. No one except the wind had such irascible wrists.

The best story tellers are those that abscess ephemera and access entropy, those that keep a lump in their throat and a pencil in their pants pockets. The best writers are those who bruise easier, cry harder, anger quicker, and stay up later than anyone but ascetics.

The best writers live between ink blots and atelephobia.

I am far from a nebulous beauty; all ulna and apostrophe; I am not, in my own mental image of me, particularly memorable, but when I write, I grow taller than World Book and Webster stacked. When I write, I render infinitesimal forevers; the words scurry out of me, inexorable as government, and someone sees.

I write for myself at fifteen, in the throes of nervosa, pulling my hair back like prayer beads over the school toilets and pleading for God's calloused palm on my carotid. I write for sixth graders who sit alone at lunch, for single mothers sipping whisky after work. I write for the inevitability of summer. I write because I wasn't born in time to see the Chicago Fire, because the color of the cornfields never changes.

The best writers are always hungry and almost hopeful.