Now nobody knows who she is. — I knew a girl who could sell you a LOL but couldn’t tell you how to smile. Not even for a much-needed hug and a couple of hundred thou. Yet if you asked, she’d tell you she was well — all while going through her own personal version of hell. …

Some days, I just miss the dead. — Most days, I just miss the little things. The irreplaceable, unforgettable, and unpurchasable. No matter how wealthy I become, I’ll never be able to buy back the lives of the people in those memories who have since passed. The flip side to that however is, no matter how poor I…

A meditation of sorts on life and death. — A game of chance they called Russian Roullette with more than one in the chamber. Should a stray or perfectly aimed bullet strike me tonight, let it not be in anger. Revolt regularly, it’ll make revolution seem less impossible. Fight with all your might for what you believe is right…

Anger can and should be used for your own good. — When I was young, I’d get so mad I could feel tears start to bubble up in my eyes, and then I’d get angrier that I let whatever was bothering me, make me that upset. It was a whole non-productive cycle. Years later, not knowing how to properly deal with…

An antidote to hopelessness. — Most of what I write these days isn’t that easy for the people closest to me or who care about me the most to read. …

An ode to those who made it, specifically because they were told not to. — A tremendous amount of undiscovered talent always has and always will reside in the trenches. The spots we forget to look hold answers to questions we haven’t even asked yet. The kids who are practicing their jump shot on battered playgrounds where shots ring out on the regular and have…

Maybe it was fate, but regardless blaming a God I hardly believed in was never a solution. We aimed for peace but they brought the war to us. The one time we tried to talk instead of fight they called us draft dodgers. The weapons hardened us, hallways and politics…

Tetris was our TikTok. Diss records and replies of Drive-bys consisting of no less than six shots, was what we called hip hop. I’m from an era that murdered Pac and Robocop then tried to rebirth both for a dollar and a photo op. For some of us, our only…

Reflecting on the good old days that turned bad, for our own benefit. — The year was somewhere around 1992, I just landed a sweet new Batman big wheel and Nintendo, based on my ability to make it through preschool without any real dilemmas — unless you count falling asleep during graduation and saying “shank you” instead of thank you upon receiving my kiddie…