The writings in this book come from real pain, betrayal, lost love, being left alone, and being mistreated. Instead of picking up a gun and hurting other people and/or myself, I grabbed a pen and some paper and started writing no matter what I wrote about. If it got to me and made me feel some kind of way or made me think, I wrote it down. I would stay up all night writing. I just wrote and wrote and never stopped writing. I'd never thought about the response I would get from my writings, good or bad, and never thought about putting them in a book. I remember the first poem I wrote was "Birds Flying Free."

I was in a bad relationship and wanted to get out of it, not because of fights or anything, but because she loved the clubs, night life, and her friends more than she loved me. I couldn't be the father I wanted to be, the kind of father I knew and know that I could be, so I wrote about it.

I thank God for my gift because if I didn't have writing to calm me down, I probably would be in prison, dead, or on the run.