I have long envisioned my process of writing as an incomplete picture, an assembly of puzzle pieces always missing parts in the end.
Completed in 2009, the first year I moved to New York, my first collection of 64 poems was titled Blackbone: How to Know My Broken Mind and Body. I consider it to be a meaningful work of juvenilia, written as I endeavored to find a voice for the strains of growing into adulthood, and it still serves as a blueprint for an emotional bridge between my past and present. It begins with a broken mirror and ends with a self-portrait, vanity all around. The expression, however, is quite emotional, and I intend it not as a selfish narrative, but rather a complicated embrace of the varied parts of anyone you love, including and especially yourself. I hope it shines with that purpose.