Castles in the Sky

˙⋆ Introduction ⋆˙

This collection shouldn't exist. 

It shouldn't be here, compiled into a neat little order on a platform like Wattpad. It shouldn't be online where anyone and everyone can see it and critique it and read it.

This collection should never have become what it is right now.

But it is.

It's here—in it's truest and rightest form—solely because of the grace of God. 

I know that sounds cheesy and cliche, but there's really no other way for me to describe why this collection has morphed into what it is.

For you to really understand what I mean, I suppose I should start at the beginning . . .

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I never planned on releasing this collection into the world. When I wrote these pieces, I never planned on anyone seeing them. If I thought that people would see them, I don't know if I would've written them at all.

These pieces hold the most fragile, vulnerable, raw, and painful parts of my soul.

I wrote these pieces when I felt alone, when I was alone, when I thought nobody understood, and when I didn't know how to express what I was feeling. 

I wrote these pieces in scraps of time that I didn't have at 3AM when I was supposed to be asleep but couldn't quiet my mind. I wrote these pieces in the dark, tucked into my bed where I finally felt safe to cry. 

I wrote these pieces to find the only kind of healing I knew how to find at the time.

I wrote so many of these pieces just so I knew I wasn't crazy.

And if it wasn't for my mother, half of this collection would still be strewn across my Google Drive, and the other half probably wouldn't exist at all.

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When I first compiled this collection, there were no chapters and at least eight poems were missing.

When I first prepared to release this collection, it was a shell of it's potential. In fact, that was the original purpose of the collection: to sit with you in your darkness. 

I crafted the original version of this collection for the shadow girls—the ones who felt like a husk of their childhood selves; who yearned for the days when they didn't know that life could hurt so badly; who wished they knew how to fix the mess of their lives.

I'd suddenly gone from a girl who only knew how to write about hope to a girl who created an entire poetry collection devoid of hope.

And I couldn't bring myself to publish it because I knew it wasn't right.

I didn't know how to fix it, but I knew that I couldn't publish it the way it was.

Then I started writing again.

As more and more poetry spilled from my fingertips, something changed.

My poetry wasn't stiff and awkward and unnatural and disjointed and uncomfortable and broken. 

It was healing, and so was I.

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A lot of this collection is about one person.