Valiant Scribe
A literary hub giving voice to the voiceless by retelling the human experience

Let me be remembered, not because of what I did or didn’t do, not for what I said or didn’t say, not for how much money I earned,

“Private!” I yelled. Midland: “What did you call me?” “Private Foster. I’m your sergeant. You’re not near Midland. You’re in Iraq.”

“As a child, I never imagined that one day I would see the Mountain devoid of snow and I don’t know when will I see the musk deer and the...

They killed a man whose words still echo forgiveness in the spaces under the Walnut Street Bridge, even the unspoken ones they know not...

I wanted to leave this earth, join you and your son. You wanted nothing of it. Sent angels to rip up my passport, keep me in the country.

An adjective people throw around when feeling energetic or unfocused. A joke for most is a reality for me.

I walked where Passenger trains Carried lives and Their once warm, Now cold, dreams And I was part of Each life, now gone To ether and mist

as we kickboard our lives across imaginary lines our hearts tied up in plastic bags drifting out to sea.

I am expatriate, my motherland, the one that birthed and then betrayed me, no longer my home. No songs of redemption, no longer

The forest never sleeps and also cries for redemption, the soul of the Amazon, the trees of life-giving air.

Meth, opioids, other street drugs claim a spot on the pavement, offering communion with the concrete, the dark like a stern overlord,

I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you, in the soiled coat and blue jeans, shuffling along the subway station, praying for money from heaven.

shallow breathing - high piercing sirens screech in the streets - crouching shoulders - whispers - fences keeping enemies of the state in -

The clouds above you form as the moon rises, you try to give them a sense of purpose, you know that the messenger with the bad news won’t...

To my brother and surrogate thank you for gifting me life to see the light in my unborn son's eyes,

The siren startles with its high-pitched fever, late summer night, sending folks scrambling down side streets or indoors. Cops are either...

And in the undisturbed brick and limestone, everything quietly waiting for the nocturnal, the gutters to run clear,

We ALL look so alien, just as what we’re called on the official documents.

Can we exit this interlocked sequence of oppression and reflexive violence?

Becoming untouchable takes time. Start young. Instill quiet oppression. Reinforce the stakes, ignore the quakes, the terror. Regular...