The Exit
The way I left Holyoke wasn’t cinematic. There was no moment of clarity. No morning I woke up and decided I was done. The decision got made for me — my landlord called a raid on my place, and just like that, the chapter ended the way it began.…
Franklin Street
I was twenty-two years old when I landed on Franklin Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I didn’t arrive with a plan. I arrived carrying the weight of everything that had already begun to fall apart. Somewhere between the person I had been and the…
Mina
After I left home, I coped the way a lot of people do when they don’t know what else to do. I drank. I had a group of eight friends I’d grown close to after high school — people I saw every day, people who became their own kind of family when…
The Years In Between
After leaving home, life became about survival. When my mother went to jail for thirty days, I moved in with my aunt. Eventually I reached a point where I didn’t have a stable place to go. I became a nanny because I needed somewhere to be. It was…
The Night I Left
I was eighteen years old the night I got into my mother’s car and didn’t look back. I don’t remember everything about that night in the way you remember a normal evening. I remember the feeling. Sad. Lost. Confused. My mind was already…
The Library Where It Began
Every writer has a beginning. Mine happened in a library. I was thirteen years old, sitting in the East Longmeadow library with Sue, the librarian. I had just finished reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The story affected me deeply. It made me think…
The House on Ainsley Drive
I grew up in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, in a raised ranch home on Ainsley Drive. My father was raising four children as a single father. My mother struggled with alcoholism. My stepmother struggled with alcoholism. The home carried challenges that a…
The Red Dictionary
Before there was a pen name. Before there were books with my name on the cover. Before there was a website, a vision, a platform, a purpose. There was a boy locked in a room. Fifteen years old. East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. A raised ranch house on…
Prologue: The Story Behind the Words
The Story Behind the Words A Journey Through Pain, Poetry, Survival, and Purpose “Vinny, you’re never seen, but you’re always heard.” — Vincent’s sister The Red Dictionary →