I Wrote a Book. The Industry Said, “Cool. Now Dance, Monkey.”

Ah yes, social media.

Where art goes to starve and authors go to dance for scraps of relevance.

The truth is, sometime around sophomore year, I made the wisest decision of my teenage years and deleted all of it. 

There were several reasons for this.

One, it took too much of my precious time. There was painfully little to begin with once I finished all my AP homework, studying for tests, and acting as a couples therapist for my parents.

Two, it made me sad. There I was: pimply, depressed, and again… the emotional bedrock of my family, despite not knowing what a 401K was or how to boil rice properly. I had to watch all these other lucky children go to prom rather than tutor and babysit their younger sibling and actually have a childhood. 

Some kids got corsages. I got passive-aggressive texts from my mom and the privilege of explaining divorce to a 9-year-old.

Three: my psychotic step-sister who tried to kill me several times as a child was viewing my stories, and listen, if anyone's gonna haunt me, it better at least be a literary agent.

Am I okay?
The answer is a solid KIND OF.

The irony is not lost on me.
I deleted social media for my mental health.
Publishing now demands I build a “platform.”

So here I am. Performing. For strangers.
Like the tired, traumatized Aries moon I am.

All I wanted was peace. All they gave me was Canva and a ring light.

Let’s pray the algorithm notices.