I need to be opening my laptop and doing academics, but I have this burning desire every time I listen to that one motivation by Charles Bukowski. He’s an amazing soul—so dark, so detailed, so honest. Something I want to be so badly in a world that still mutes me.

I’m currently writing a children’s book with my friend Andrea, because it seemed easier to have someone in my spot who knows what they’re doing and has the accomplishment of completing the task. I don’t believe in myself, but every day, no matter the battle or the suffering, it comes from knowing there’s something in me, deeper, waiting to come out. It can be excruciating, and that is why, to this day, after eight years, I can hear that writing motivation and my body catches fire. It burns from the top of my head down to the bottom of my toes. I feel alive, and passion goes through me.

And then I stop, and I think, My God, my son is dead. How do I get through this? How do I write my masterpiece without jumping off the deep end? I don’t know. I guess I will just keep writing.

They say that writing leads to a kind of healing, and maybe that’s the win in all of this. Dr. James Pennebaker—the psychologist who pioneered expressive writing therapy found that putting your deepest emotions into words can actually reduce trauma symptoms, lower stress, and help the mind process what the body has carried for too long.

So maybe that’s what I’m doing here. Maybe every sentence is a stitch, every paragraph a small bandage, and every page a place where the pain turns into something else. Maybe this is where the healing finally begins