I'm caught up in time as it stands still.

Things are happening around me, but for me, everything is moving at a snail's pace.

My mind is adrift as the visions of life float around me.

You see, time stopped for me the day my son died.

I cannot fast forward the clock to the present.

Nor can I rewind it and prevent his death.

I will forever be stuck in time on that fateful day.

The day my son Kalief took his life.

I had to let it out.

And that's how I made it out.

You know, I cry, and I look at his pictures and I talk to him.

But most importantly, I write.

Whenever I feel anything, I write it down.

And that's how I keep a little part of my sanity because it is so hard.

I'm his advocate.

I'm just keeping it going.

I want everybody to remember him.

I don't want his story to die.

Rikers should be demolished.

If we honor Kalief Browder's memory and all the people have been victimized by Rikers Island, we can only honor it by closing it.

Rikers has completely failed as any type of place to keep people in any fashion really, and should be kind of moving forward with a different vision by now.

We think that the renewable Rikers idea, that green infrastructure island was what should move forward.

And what folks are looking at is doing battery storage.

You store the energy and then you're able to use it when you need it.

So we're looking at at that kind of battery storage here, along with solar fields, both there and other places on the island.

We're proposing more solar fields on this island than exist in all of New York City combined right now.

We have to build more infrastructure.

We have to update our infrastructure.

Without it, we're not going to survive climate change.

We're not going to survive our energy needs.

We're always going to be advocating for this until it gets done.

My poems are an extension of me.

My thoughts moving, intertwining, coming together as an idea.

Words of rhyme or free verse linked forming sentences whether by pen and paper or keys of ink.

I can express what I feel and not be intimidated or inhibited.

I am free to write the template for my voice and hopefully through my poems, you will remember me.