Chosen

A moment I’ll never forget…

birds the smell of grass my dog’s disgruntled whimper the impatient click click of his claws on the hard kennel floor. The mailbox gapes open the paper in my shaking hand. The single word leaps out at me Like lightning, like ice water like a bullet to my twelve-year-old brain. In one word every birthday cake every Christmas morning every chocolate fudge sundae every summer swim. Congratulations. We have chosen. Your story has been chosen. The blue check flutters the ground, in the moment, next to nothing. I bend to pick it up. Chosen. I am a writer now. Inside me, a floating balloon. The sun has risen on a glorious new day.

Author’s Note: I had my first story published when I was 12 in a magazine called Shoe Tree, which featured works from child writers. It was a short, humorous slice of life I wrote about solving math problems in class.

Perhaps not the most exciting material, but I tried to make it humorous, and I guess they liked it.

I still have the magazine somewhere, in a box, with the other places I was published in all those years ago.

I took a long hiatus from writing poetry and stories and submitting them. As a grown-up, I needed to get a “real job.” Now, on Medium, I’m sharing stories and poetry again.

Anyway, I hope you like this. It was a moment I’ll never forget.