I Wanted To Be A Writer

By Abigail Thomas

When I was sixteen, I wanted to be deep, whatever that was, but it sounded interesting and nothing about me felt the least bit interesting. One night I struggled to write a poem about the tree in Washington Square outside my bedroom window. Unfortunately, I had no deep feelings about the tree. It was familiar, like a pal, I liked looking at it, that was all, and alas, you can’t invent deep feelings, at least not at sixteen. I remember two embarrassing lines, “and then the...