belonging, on self: poems on dominirican healing is a collection of poems to heal the inner child of a Dominirican body. It explores the journey toward self-actualization as each poem break open themes of abandonment and abuse, homelessness, coming out, surviving poverty, finding joy, and discovering the self despite the circumstances. At once, the poems are glimpses into one of many New York-born immigrants making sense out of family generational traumas, traversing language barriers, and creating a second skin of island folk tales in new lands. Using vivid place and space as characters, belonging, on self walks with a delicate evolution of self through community with infinite compassion and intimacy. The collection spans across communities in remembrance of the past, its pains, and passes the baton for others to explore healing fuelled by joy and radical self-love.