It was an unconditional, at-first-sight, head-first-dive kind of love I found myself in at 17. I had never met anything that simultaneously made me feel so vulnerable and invincible, not until spoken word poetry. Perhaps this is an anti-climactic reveal, but for me that discovery was explosive.

I’ve always been a writer. My earliest memory of a poem I wrote dates back to 1995 or so, and the piece mentioned flowers and chocolate. I must have been precociously romantic at 4 years old. But I had never spoken my words aloud or even considered the possibility.

When my friend showed me videos of poets she knew performing at infamous places such as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Bowery Poetry Club, I felt something awaken or open inside me. Like, a door to a room I didn’t know existed! I remember going home after school that day and watching video after video after video, hands covered in ink, trying to nail the perfect string of words into the perfect “slam” cadence. Nothing good was born that night. I was trying too hard to sound like someone I wasn’t. And it hit me later that the whole point of spoken word, poetry, or any art medium is being yourself. So, I turned the computer off, stopped listening to other people’s voices, and started hearing my own. And out came this poem. My first real spoken word piece. I read it over and over to myself. But never to anyone else. This was my baby. And I couldn’t handle anyone telling me it was ugly. I held onto that poem for about a year.

The first time I dared to perform it, I was in a room of 100 strangers, an experience that might terrify most. It was the last night of a week-long orientation for freshmen students of color. Though I had resolved to cure myself of my shyness by the time I started college, I had spoken to maybe 6 people that entire time. But, when I hit the makeshift stage that night, I felt so at home in my nerves, and in being seen and heard — a thing I had not known in my, then, 18 years.

Writing had always been such a quiet experience for me. I wasn’t just a shy person; I was introverted and living with several undiagnosed mental disorders. Survival at that time meant keeping everything to myself. This was the first time I let people into my experience. Granted, that poem was about unrequited love, but it was a stepping stone.

So many people approached me, telling me how talented I was and how what I wrote spoke to them and helped them heal. That was another thing I had never considered. My art, up until that point, had only ever been for me. I wrote to cope with my depression, anxiety, and loneliness, to better understand what I was thinking and feeling. I had never considered that something I created could help someone else. After that, I joined my college’s first-ever slam team, competed nationally, and gained more than confidence. I was truly learning who I was through writing and sharing.

And now, that’s all I want to do. I believe in the power of art to change, shape, and heal. I am so lucky to have found such a diverse, political, powerfully vulnerable community. I found a “safe space.” I get to be Black out-loud. I get to be hurting out-loud. I get to heal out-loud. It’s the one space I’ve found I don’t have to be afraid of everything that I am. Basically, finding my spoken word community was like getting my letters to “Hogwarts,” and we all get to make magic together.