These images were never meant to be seen. I didn’t think I’d live long enough to share them—let alone do anything with them. I take pictures compulsively. It’s how I prove to myself that I exist. The camera is my witness, my mirror, my evidence. What you’re seeing are fragments: no smooth transitions, just raw, unfiltered glimpses of what I saw when the world slowed down. Photography helps me make sense of things—helps me find beauty in the darkness that lives around the fringes of society. This series documents my life in exile—social exclusion, circa 2016–2018. In 2015, my mom died of cancer. The year before, I came out as queer to my very Mormon family—who didn’t know what to do with me. In 2016, my best friend Lauren died. She was sober, homeless, and alone—her body found on the lawn outside a CVS. I found out later she had tried calling me before she died. I didn’t answer. A week after that, my girlfriend kicked me out. I lost my chosen family, the toddler I’d helped raise, and the last bit of stability I was clinging to. I slept in my car until a coworker took me in. Then I spiraled. Drugs and a camera helped me survive. I didn’t choose life on the margins—I was pushed there. I was homeschooled, sheltered, unprepared for adulthood, and had no idea how to support myself. I enrolled at BYU in Provo, Utah, but after an assault on campus, I dropped out. I was working as a photographer, but it wasn’t enough. The first time I was fully exiled was in 2013. After a couple years of chaos and alcoholism, I went to rehab. Shortly after, my family cut me off. I was homeless within weeks. There were more rehab stays. More losses. More failures. Eventually, I found myself in Arizona—left there to die. So I documented it. I’m a photographer. That’s what I do. This collection spans 2016 to 2018—images taken in stolen moments as I drifted in and out of homelessness. Sometimes I worried who might find my Google Photos if I died. Other times I wondered if anyone would even notice. To be continued—and finally, organized.