Melissa Rose Boisclair

For what seemed like a very long time, there was a growing trend in the art world. Pain. Heartache. Loss. All these emotions, and the events that cause them,were the inspiration for poetry, short stories and novels alike. We use art to express ourselves, and to heal. But is it healing if you express it without letting it go? Art is life. Life is pain, but life is love as well. Yet time in again, I read the published works of aspiring authors and poets, and what I see is heavy words and heavy hearts. There is beauty in your suffering, but isn't that beauty found in your triumph  rather than the suffering itself? (Though I suppose the entire process of pain, illumination and growth, is stunning.) No matter who you are, no matter if you live in a mansion, or the doorway to a boarded up building on the side of the street, we all have hardships. It's from these hardships that we learn, and grow. But it seems like people get stuck in the middle of the metamorphosis. They reach t...

Imagine this: You stand at the gate to your next life, wondering what lessons it should encompass. And then, you have it. The entirety of the first quarter of your life, you'll be conditioned into a quiet individual who wants nothing more than to be a shadow cast from the brilliant light of all those around you. Then, when your set in your ways, you come to realize that's not the person you want to be Not only that, but you've reached the age where society dictates you won't be able to change. And, by some illuminating occurrence, you recognize that society was wrong. Through all the pains and woes of childhood, you've come now to a time where you have the opportunity to re-create your entire identity. How incredible is that? To wake up one morning and realize the person you've always wanted to be is not only on the other side of a rope bridge, but reaching out to you as urgently as you reach for them? Take some time to imagine that for me.  And then realize t...