The “I Am” poem is an exercise I did with a student I have been tutoring in English. As she took time to write her own, I figured I would do the same. This is the poem that came from that.

This is a letter to someone I met on my plane back from Germany, back in April.

A letter to a stranger I met on my 24 hour bus ride to Boston when I was sixteen-years-old.

During my senior year of college, my friend and fellow writer Avery Pope shared his poem “The Last Wishlist of a Black Man” with me. At that time, I had written, spoken, and had conversations about being a Black man, though those were always centered around anger and justice. His poem introduced the exploration of softness to me, inspiring me to write my own version of the poem, changing things to be specific to my wishlist.

As I finish editing this and posting this piece, I can’t help but think of my brother Brandon (pictured above), who I lost to mental illness in 2021. My relationship with death and grief has changed so much since then, but the thing that hasn’t changed is I still approach it with softness.

This is an article I wrote for Playbill for one of the Alliance Theatre’s productions. The play centers around a brilliant girl scientist who desperately wants her parents to be back together and will go to any means necessary to make that happen, including time travel.

As I begin to prepare to travel the world, I had to get my passport as the first step. After struggling to figure out what to do, what to bring, and where to go, I finally arrived to put my order in, which is where I met a stranger that left an impact on me.

This is an introduction post to my blog that shares the inspiration and the why behind it.