Long before I ever became the author of Scar Tissue & Stardust, before I understood trauma, healing, or what it meant to tell the truth on a page… there was a little girl in elementary school who fell in love with words.
Oddly enough, it began with a television show.
I used to watch a show called Swans Crossing, and there was a character on it who wrote poetry. I do not remember the exact scene, or the exact poem, but I remember the feeling it left behind.
Something about it stirred in me.
Something quiet.
Something that felt like possibility.
Not long after that, I found a dictionary.
I do not even remember where it came from—whether it was sitting forgotten on a shelf, tucked away in a classroom, or buried somewhere in our home—but I remember what it became.
An escape.
I was an extremely shy child. Awkward in school. Quiet in rooms that often felt louder than I knew how to be.
At home, I was often helping care for my siblings while my mother and stepfather worked long hours to keep food on the table and life moving forward.
There was always noise.
Always responsibility.
Always someone who needed something.
But in that dictionary…
I found a world that belonged only to me.
I would spend hours turning pages, searching for words that felt different. Words that sounded older. Softer. More elegant than anything I heard people use in everyday conversation.
Forgotten words.
Words most people had stopped noticing.
And somehow… I noticed them.
I began writing them down.
Page after page.
Lists of words that sparked something in me.
Sometimes I would make little collections of words I had not used yet—words I was saving for the right poem, the right feeling, the right moment.
And then, almost without trying, the words would begin finding each other.
A line.
Then another.
Then a poem.
And to that little girl…
It felt like magic.
I think I collected forgotten words because they were beautiful and unnoticed.
And maybe, in some quiet way…
So was I.
Those words opened something in me.
They made my small world feel endless.
They taught me that language could hold ache, wonder, longing, love, grief, faith, and the pieces of ourselves we struggle to name.
Even now, as an adult, I still do it.
I still have old notebooks filled with words I have not used yet.
Words I am still saving.
Words waiting for their moment.
And sometimes I think about that quiet little girl with the dictionary…
And I realize:
She never knew that one day, those words would help her heal.
Help her love.
Help her speak.
Help her become.
— Jennifer Rene Wallace
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I remember when you would read the dictionary. Thought it was super weird back then, maybe I was envious because I hated reading or anything to do with being “smart.” Intelligence meant knowing better and it was easier and safer to play dumb (in my silly little mind). To this day, you’re still my go to dictionary and grammar police! It interesting to have a different perspective of why you read and what you did with the words from the dictionary. I think it’s super cool (now).