This poetry collection is about strength and survival and finding imperfect joy.

Some of these poems make me cringe when I reread them.

Not because they're wrong but because they were written

without distance, without polish, without protection.

They were written exactly as I felt in those moments, unfiltered.

And sometimes, when I come back to them I don't cringe.

I leave the poems the way they were written on purpose.

I don't revise the discomfort out of them.

I don't smooth the edges. Because those feelings were real,

and they were permissible and honest as can be.

They needed to exist on the page exactly as they existed inside me.

Learning to let them stay has been part

of learning to accept the full spectrum of who I am.

This collection isn't a performance of healing.

It's a record of it: awkwardness, intensity, tenderness, and all.

Writing was how I survived those moments.

Reading them now is how I recognize the deep love I have for myself.

I'm sharing this book in the hope that someone else recognizes

themselves here, even in the parts that feel

embarrassing, too much, or unfinished.

Especially in those parts.