This is a tale of individual life, a testimony of where I came from, who I am, and the person I strive to be. My poetry is a spiritual journal of my search for understanding and knowledge from a higher power. I guess I was trying to find my true purpose for being here. I was born in a small mountain town in Pennsylvania. My dad was a doctor, and I was the fourth of five kids growing up. My parents divorced when I was eight years old, and I remember crying all night when I was told my dad had to go away. My mother re-married, and my stepdad brought his four kids to live with us, in a Brady Bunch-type family. It took many years to adjust to being the eighth of nine kids, trying to figure out how to fit in. I became a troubled teen, and was sent to Colorado to participate in a program called Outward Bound. I was sixteen years old at the time, and I was with people from all over the country, backpacking and mountaineering in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Crestone, Colorado. On the tenth day of our expedition we were set apart, alone, and had to fast for three days, drinking only water, similar to a Native American Vision Quest. I must have received a vision, because that was when God gave me my first poem. I was living in Illinois at the time. My journey has also taken me to Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, until I finally made it back to Colorado, and found the exact canyon where my poetry was given to me. The only time I truly feel alive is when I write, and I want to share this art with you. Humbly, David Degelman