My life has always been an open book, & i know not everyone likes to read - my mother taught me never to think twice about cowards who could never find it in themselves to ask the right questions - & i saw the way she built the future from the ashes of her past - the same way the Greeks built the world as we know it by burning the ships & the oars at the shores of a new chapter - they knew the only way home was forward - & it took far too long for me to understand the depths of my own oceans were as much a gift as they were a curse - i see the world as it is, & imagine what it could be. As a poet, i hear a friend say that he loves his chosen one, but i watch his eyes go wide & his voice go quiet when i say “tell me three stories about her that you’re not in.” & i realize i’ve been alive long enough to know what most men love is a mirror. & so i’m no longer afraid of my own depths- i’ve seen enough outliers exhaust their lungs trying to stay afloat in ankle deep water long enough to know that poetry - like a man - does not have to be good to fulfill its purpose. & the only purpose of anything is hope - not in what is - but what could be.