Sometimes I look at what I write and it is as if I am looking down at myself as a stranger. I find myself wondering if I really wrote that or did it just find its way to the page on its own, based off the beauty of the words? That’s part of the magic of writing, I guess. The way the words sometimes find their own way together. Creating a poetic phrase so magical, so perfectly in sync, so perfectly imperfect, that I wonder who that stranger inside me is – and how the heck do I keep her around more often?

Of course, most of the time, it is just me doing the writing, not the perfect stranger, and those times I find the authenticity in my voice to be strengthened. I am more believable as a real writer to myself when the words pour out on my own terms, and not just allowed to write themselves. The writing may not be perfect, it will have flaws, but it is mine. Not the stranger I look down on (who is also me), who just finds flowery words and combines them into beauty without my soul attached.

~Melissa Allor