The creative doors on my writing swung open when I was just a young kid, struggling with deep emotional turmoil. As a youngin’ with Bipolar Disorder, creative writing was the only way I could seem to express myself in a way that made sense to me and everyone around me.

I could scream. I could kick. I could punch. But no one understood that language and what I meant by it, or what I deeply needed when I’d do it. Only when I wrote poetry could people really see my depth and my emotional struggles as an unregulated kid in an accessible way.

My poetry was very articulate, and well above what my aged kids were writing at the time. I wrote poems about acid, even though I had never interacted with the drug in my life, not even come close. I wrote poems about unrequited love, though I had never yet romantically loved another. I wrote about intense depression and anger…although that one I actually had experience with…it was part of being an unregulated kid with undiagnosed Bipolar.

One of my favorite childhood poems, maybe written in elementary school or so, goes like this:

“Last Breath”

It’s like a never ending fairy tale,

While the distance quite a stretch,

Nothing ends a love story,

Lasting till the death,

Hand in hand,

At day’s last peak,

The creek promised shelter,

By the meadows side they rest,

While it sings it’s last chirr,

The couple takes their last breath.

- Devin Roscillo

I could never have known those experiences first hand as a 10 or 11 year old, but I certainly felt the depth of the words I wrote.

Writing was the one way I could truly be seen for the deep feeler that I was. And man did I love it. Words flowed through me like water in a rushing river. It’s what water is meant to do, and it’s what words were meant to do through me. Writing found me, and I continue to find it. I continue to use the words that show me how to express what I cannot say or show otherwise. I would not feel as free as I do without it.

If you find passion, joy, or self-expression in writing, I encourage you to make space to allow the written word to flow through you. You have so much to say, and you deserve to share it all.

With all my love,

Devin <3