Life gets in the way

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Life Gets in the Way is a powerful poetry chapbook exploring what it means to survive, endure, and keep going when life disrupts your dreams. Written over the course of three decades, these poems move through girlhood, grief, community trauma, mental health, motherhood, and faith with unflinching honesty.

Rooted in lived experience and shaped by the South Side of Chicago, this collection gives voice to girls who weren’t protected, communities marked by struggle, and the quiet wars waged inside the mind's deepest valleys. As the book unfolds, it also traces a rise toward resilience, spiritual awakening, and the fierce, unwavering love of a mother.

Life Gets in the Way is for readers who have known loss, carried responsibility too young, questioned their worth, and still found the courage to rebuild. These poems don’t offer easy answers, but they offer recognition, truth, and the reminder that survival itself is a form of strength.