Close to my heart

This collection of poems is a journey through survival, heartbreak, and quiet resilience. It is for the child who learned courage before gentleness, the woman still unlearning silence, and anyone who has carried pain without witnesses. Raw, intimate, and unflinching, these poems bear witness to love in all its imperfect forms, grief that lingers, and the small, uncelebrated acts of endurance that shape us. Close to My Heart is a tribute to the people, experiences, and moments that broke us, remade us, and taught us the courage to choose ourselves again and again.