My given name is Dustin Michael Dennison, but I have gone by the nickname Dill since I was in the seventh grade. I've been participating in the contest here on poetrysoup since 2016. A few years prior I had been discharged from the military were I was an Army Medic (garrison soldier). I feel by the wayside and into addiction. 2016 was my final attempt to obtain a college education as an R.N. I loved the work but I despised the whole hospital environment as I was accustom to emergency medical practices in the field. I found that I had little difficulty with written language while I'm high school. I wasn't a great student by any means but I wasn't lazy. I was accused of plagiarism on my senior research finial. Apparently I wasn't supposed to know that ostracize was a synonym for discriminate. Anyhow fast forward 8 years and I'm still interested in writing but never write much other than a short story every six months at best. At the time I was taking Eng. 111 under Jan Richard's. She was a phenomenal lady and instructor. She pulled me aside after I'd written my first paper (a short story) for her class. She made me feel like I had a gift when all along it started from the spite of being accused of cheating. Basically being told I wasn't intelligent enough; like high school was rocket science. Anyhow, towards the end of the semester Ms. Richards asked me after class one day if I'd take her creative writing class. I was naturally thinking hell nah! But I asked questions and poetry came up. I'm a music lover so I asked more questions. She asked me to do her a favor and to just attempt to write a poem during my lunch. While chowing down in my truck I scribble some works down and pack them back in to here. She encouraged me furthermore with her reactions. I eventually dropped all my course work to go to work lol I ended up in awful shape and refused to go to the college while I was high. I isolated myself from the world and began reading about poetry forms and taught myself how to express some kinda feelings. I literally wrote myself out of addiction and five years later I'm still dropping a few lines here and there. I never got that degree but I found my outlet to the world, I own my own company, and I'm over four years sober. I've never written a biography before ???? I hope it suits yuns...