Even though Amal Shahid is an artist and poet, he's still viewed as disruptive and unmotivated at his diverse art school. One fateful night at a local park, a fight breaks out between Amal and his friends and a group of white boys from a nearby gentrified neighborhood, leaving one of the white boys in a coma. Amal is convicted of the attack and sent to prison, even though he's not the one who put the boy in a coma. His despair and rage at having his bright future destroyed threaten to overcome him until he discovers the refuge and hope that his words and art give him.