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by Lauren Hope Bartling (Author)
This is not just poetry. This is a reckoning.
With gut-punching intensity, this collection pulls you deep into one woman's raw lived experience-until you realize it is your own. These poems deftly confront the pain of abandonment and abuse, not with sentimentality or even courage, but with pure, unfiltered defiance.
With the emotional force of a storm, Lauren Hope Bartling calls out the narcissistic abuse of her story-and ours. It is deeply personal, yet strikingly universal. Unflinching and unforgettable, these poems stare straight into the manipulations, the gaslighting, and erasure of self, delivering epic emotional takedowns line by line. This is poetry as rebellion, confronting the wounds we've hidden-including the self-inflicted ones. Through anguish, fury, and fierce reclamation, she offers not just catharsis, but a radical invitation to feel, to rage, to heal. This is the kind of power that rises from the ashes, unapologetic and unafraid to speak the words we've all swallowed.
This collection is for anyone who has ever been twisted to fit into someone else's mold, forced to silence their truth, or made to doubt their own sanity. This is for anyone who's battled not just external tormentors, but the internal chaos they left behind. The mental health struggles depicted in this book are not just words on a page; they are so emotionally precise, they bypass the intellect and hit where it hurts-each poem a mirror for our most private battles. But while these poems may be born of trauma, they live for love and survive on hope.
Lauren's poetry is for those who know that survival is its own kind of triumph. It is for anyone who has ever wanted to scream the truth of their reality and be heard. These poems are that scream-raw, defiant, and finally free.
It's painful. It's furious. And it's wildly empowering.
