My brother and I grew up as the children of two military parents.We bounced from one city to another, never staying long enough to settle.Our home has always existed on the road. 
Before going to summer camp one year, our parents were married.When we got back they weren’t anymore.Father’s presence gradually faded from our lives, eventually leaving all together.Some would say that ours is the classic definition of a broken home. 
Although we made friends, we knew that they were temporary, so we never invested too heavily.We never stayed long enough to establish roots or gain a sense of security.When people ask, where we are from, we don’t really know what to say.We’ve never had a hometown. 
For many, the concept of home evokes images of comfort, security, tradition, and stability. 
However, some lives are full of impermanence…..Maya Angelou was a homeless child; James Baldwin found his home in another country, and Zora Neal Hurston died penniless and homeless. As a writer, I think of poetry as a refuge.It is one of the only spaces that can house the truth.The paradox of truth is that it can be simultaneously comfortable and upsetting…simultaneously secure and threatening...traditional and contemporary…stable and revolutionary. 
Poetry is often a self-created space, where one finds the strength to face our simultaneously bitter and beautiful realities. 
And because some courageously decide to share their poetic truths, others are able to find reprieve in their words. 
                                                                  —the Jr. Jali