This is my first time reading Teen Ink and I was blown away by the quality of the writing, made all the more incredible because it is entirely by people my age. Although most of the pieces were amazing, I was particularly struck by Emily Ransom’s poem, “Cancer Never Had Me,” about a girl struggling to accept the fact that she has leukemia.

The poem, written in a blunt but poignant voice, describes her initial denial and finally her acceptance of the fact that she is fighting for her life. She voices how she wishes that things had been different between her and her friends and family, and how she “wasn’t ready to give up my life because I had so much more I wanted to accomplish.”

This girl’s struggle with leukemia is truly inspirational, how she continued fighting, not letting the disease win. I love the way it is a poem, a shift from the usual form of narrative. All the sad details including “nausea took over my body each morning” and “I was a cancer patient, mutated cells were destroying my body,” really made my heart ache for her. By the end, I wanted to cry at the hardships she faced, but I also felt like hugging her and telling her that she was so strong and brave and that it was going to be all right.