It is with this offering to the communities we come from and have come to represent that Hakim Bellamy and I, Carlos Contreras, pledge to continue to write, speak, and act. As poets, fathers, activists, and artists, these words hold truth, growth, and pain. From these places we develop our respective crafts, like so many practitioners who came before us - without space carved out - it has been created, and so from this place, we create. Listen, hear us, see us, and render yourself audible, visible, and important, along with us. In the beginning was the word - word.