About the Poems

These poems are about my life and trying to keep it together as a mother, wife, business partner, and as a woman coming down with mental illness.

The Onset of Illness

This mental illness happened to me at the same age my mom came down with it (around the age of thirty years). The illness did not allow my mom to work and she became homeless for eight years of my childhood.

Personal Reflection

After years of caring for her when I was a child, now I was in her same shoes and felt the cold breathing down my back as my mom did when she was sent to the woods!

Questions and Concerns

Can I hold it together to raise my children? Can I make a living without my children's father, who left me because I was mentally ill? How can I now care for my children with my illness that could leave them parentless? Oh, how I worry that they will not have the necessities that life requires. But most importantly, will they end up with the same illness as I?