This Isn’t Another “Ex-Latin King Finds Jesus” Story

You’ve heard this story before—
or at least you think you have.

A gang member hits rock bottom, finds God, turns his life around, writes a book.

Clean ending. Big altar call. Amen.

But that’s not this.

This isn’t a polished testimony.
This is blood on the page.

Split Down The Middle is not about a man who found God and got it all together. It’s about a boy who was sent away by his mother at eight years old. Who spent his teenage years chasing numbness, brotherhood, and control in all the wrong places. Who joined the Latin Kings not because he loved violence—but because it was the only place that didn’t flinch when he showed up broken.

It’s about the moments no one talks about.

Not just the gun in my waistband.
Not just the drugs or the beatings.
But the nights I rocked my son to sleep with blood still under my fingernails.
The afternoons I spoke love to my wife while still answering calls from the life I swore I left behind.
The mornings I sat in church, hands raised—heart still split in two.

Because healing doesn’t erase your past.
It asks you to face it.
Over and over again.

This book isn’t a redemption arc.
It’s a reckoning.

It’s about the years I spent trying to hold my family with one hand while the other still wore the crown. It’s about choosing love when you were raised on fear. About raising sons in a home that didn’t echo the pain of your own.

It’s about sitting across from your mother and finally saying, “Tell me the truth.”
And then realizing… she might not.

Yes—I found faith.
But not the Sunday-morning kind.
The kind you claw toward when nothing makes sense.
The kind that shows up in silence, in therapy, in forgiveness that doesn’t erase the scars.

Split Down The Middle is my story.
But it’s not just about me.

It’s for the ones still straddling two lives.
For the ones trying to love their kids better than they were loved.
For the ones who never got an apology but still chose to break the cycle.

If you’re looking for a neat story, this ain’t it.
If you’re looking for a true one—flawed, raw, and still healing—this is.

Because I didn’t write this to be celebrated.
I wrote it because silence was killing me.

And maybe, just maybe, telling it out loud will help someone else start writing their own.