We are proud to present an essay by Ivanna Sintes-Klein, winner of the 2025 Writing for Life Contest in the age 16-19 category.

I was just a flower, planted in a garden I didn’t choose.

The soil was the school, and the gardeners were the teachers. Some watered us with kindness, while others neglected us, pulling petals they didn’t understand, trimming stems that didn’t grow as they wanted.

Seeds get planted in the mind. Teachers, friends, and parents shape how you see others, treat differences, and respond when you hit rock bottom. For me, the most powerful seed was how I viewed mental health.

From the beginning, I watched the other flowers. Some bloomed brightly, reaching toward the sun. Others wilted, bruised by storms no one could see. Some curled their petals inward, quiet and afraid. Some grew thorns, not to hurt anyone, but to protect what was left after being stepped on too many times.

As a young flower, I didn’t understand why classmates screamed, cried, or drifted into their worlds. I was taught to see them as damaged. The gardeners called them “difficult,” “lazy,” or “attention-seeking.” We learned that flowers that didn’t stand straight were a problem. That crying meant weakness. That silence meant disrespect. No one taught us to ask what kind of storm someone might be growing through. We were told to keep blooming, ignore the wilted ones, and face the sun, even if it wasn’t there.

I remember one flower in middle school who began to cut her stem. She whispered, “I don’t want to grow anymore.” Instead of giving her light, we turned away from her. The gardeners called her a distraction and told us to keep our distance, as if pain were contagious. We could have leaned toward her, offered shelter, but instead, we gave her more darkness.

I hadn’t realized I was becoming that kind of flower, too.

However, I had been taught to fear becoming one. From the time I was small, I’d heard whispers: “Those ‘wildflowers’ are dangerous; they’ll make you depressed, too.” I kept my distance, telling myself that as long as I stayed in the sunny rows, I’d be safe.

When my petals started to curl at thirteen, I felt ashamed. I pressed them outward, forcing them to look bright while hiding the fading beneath, pretending to face the sun even as my stem bent toward the dirt. I was confused. How could I be wilting if I had stayed away from the wildflowers? And I was terrified. I’d seen what happened to flowers who were found out: plucked from the row, given labels instead of light, forced into chemicals or fences without choice, mocked by others, treated like weeds.

So I learned to hide. Better to fake the bloom than risk being seen as blighted or pruned by a gardener who didn’t have a green thumb.

In high school, I stopped blooming. The soil felt heavy on my roots, the air cold. My leaves drooped. My colors faded. I sank into the dirt, growing in reverse. No one noticed. Or if they did, they thought I was “not trying” or “seeking attention.” But I wasn’t; I was begging for light.

That’s when I found writing.

At first, it was scribbles in the dirt, tiny lines, scattered thoughts, metaphors I was too afraid to speak aloud. I wrote poems about wilting flowers, gardens with no sun. Without realizing it, I was watering myself. Each sentence was a drop of understanding, a small act of care, a breath I didn’t know I needed.

Writing gave me roots when everything else felt unstable. It let me question what I’d been taught: maybe the drifting flowers weren’t careless, they were escaping. Maybe the ones who cried were releasing the rain before it drowned them. Maybe I wasn’t weak and just grew differently. And maybe the grass wasn’t always greener on the other side. Sometimes, it was just fake, painted over with expectations and misconceptions.

Through writing, I built a home inside myself. I learned to give myself the care I prayed for. For years, I kept bending toward the dirt, some days barely holding on. It took time, seasons of writing, learning, and unlearning, before I could finally turn a new leaf and begin to rise again. 

Now, I write when the sun feels far away, when I’m blooming or wilting. I write so I don’t forget what it feels like to be overlooked. And if I meet another flower cutting its stem, I won’t turn away. I’ll lean toward them and remind them they’re allowed to grow. 

Writing didn’t change the garden overnight. But it changed me. It taught me how to bend without breaking, how to find the sun even on cloudy days, and how to give warmth to flowers still waiting to bloom. I use my words as shovels, digging out the seeds of stigma, starting with the ones planted inside me so that a healthier garden can grow.

About the Writing for Life Contest

Girls Write Now proudly joins forces with Chasing Spirits to present the inaugural “Writing for Life” Writing Prize. This award honors the free, rebellious spirit of fourteen-year-old Maya Logan Eileraas, who used the pandemic to write their novel and fought for writing as a lifeline while in foster care and mental healthcare facilities. Together, we amplify the vitality of today’s most promising young writers who use the power of their creative voices to confront the world around them.

This year, we asked girls and LGBTQIA+ writers aged 13-19 to respond to the prompt: Describe an especially difficult time you have faced, or something you have struggled to navigate, as a teenager. How has writing helped you to survive and creatively transform your experience into new understandings of self, home, and well-being?

The results were stunning reflections on mental health and the desire to find support during isolating times.

Maya's Story

About The Novel Chasing Spirits

Chasing Spirits honors the audacity and integrity of Maya Logan’s chosen path and the creative expressions that sustained them: intricate brushstrokes on canvas, poetic verses echoing their deepest thoughts, melodies strummed in solitude, and the midnight aromas of freshly baked confections.

After six months on the run from DCFS custody, hospital emergency rooms, adolescent psychiatric wards, police cars, strangers’ apartments, ambulances, and temporary shelters, Maya Logan was found unconscious in a group home in north Los Angeles.

Late one night in May 2021 during a global pandemic, fourteen-year-old Maya Logan Eileraas ran away to live with their girlfriend in Bel Air. “Nothing left to lose,” they posted on social media. Searching for their own truths around identity, home, family, world, and belonging, Maya Logan was fiercely determined to author a new life.

More than a tribute to an extraordinary teenager’s bold journey into the wild, gift for storytelling, and art of self-invention, Chasing Spirits is a stunning meditation on what it means to love, a nuanced exploration of the infinite complexity of the human psyche, and an unflinching look at a rebel heart whose light was extinguished too soon.

Centering Maya Logan’s novel, penned during the isolation of remote learning, as a testament to their profound introspection and boundless imagination, Chasing Spirits brings together investigative journalism, personal reflections, short stories, artwork, social media posts, and secret journals.

About Chasing Spirits