Growing up, Samira often times felt stifled trying to find her voice and identity. That’s where art and literature came in. Being her favorite subjects in school, they introduced her to a world she felt free in. They gave her the confidence she needed as a high school freshman. Around her junior year, she traded in that confidence for fear, and operated on fear until she became so suffocated, it erupted into sadness a decade later. Samira likes to think that eruption was necessary because her body realized, before her mind did, that it was time to start living for herself. Here lies the journey: onward.