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“Rebuilding Self,” 12×16 inches, acrylic on canvas, 2021 Nikita Ares was born and raised in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, a beautiful city in the Northern region of Mindanao. In 2018, she graduated cum laude from Cornish College of the Arts where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts. She immigrated with her family from the …

I let my feelings guide me. There’s no calculation. I remain open and trust my memories to show me an image related to what I am working on. Here’s a quick explanation of what I do: I locate an area of my body where I feel a strong emotion. I press my non-dominant hand to that area and begin to ask: What more would you like to say? What memory do I need to remember? Show me. That’s when my brush touches the paper. Asemic writing lets me reach another layer of feeling through hand, wrist, and memory.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss anything about orthodoxy; it mapped a path for me that led across mountain ridges with lush vistas. Poetry has become a kind of surrogate for orthodoxy, except instead of one beaten path to the peak, there are manifold deer trails, switchbacks, creek beds. Swards of green to ford.  

Because too many of us have been hurt in ways both subtle and not quite so, we rightly feel the need to have our existence validated, often through the stories we urgently need to share. So, my dear writer, read and write. Keep reading. Keep writing. But above all, nurture that flame flickering inside of you. It will keep you warm on days when everyone around you acts as if they’re doubting you.

In the introduction to his anthology Staring Back, Kenny Fries notes that “throughout history, people with disabilities have been stared at. Now, here in these pages . . . writers with disabilities affirm our lives by putting the world on notice that we are staring back.”