Ashes Between Heartbeats

This book was not written from one heartbreak.
It was written from the slow accumulation of them.
The quiet deaths. The swallowed words. The nights spent staring at ceilings while memories replayed like rituals. The versions of myself I buried just to survive another morning.
Some poems were written in rage. Some in grief. Some in the numb space that comes after you finally stop asking why.
These pages hold the aftermath of loving too deeply, trusting the wrong people, surviving things that never should have happened, and learning that healing is rarely beautiful while it's happening.
There are ghosts in these poems. Old versions of me. People I miss. People I survived. Pieces of myself I am still searching for in the ashes.
If you have ever loved someone until it hurt, if

you have ever carried loneliness into crowded rooms, if you have ever rebuilt yourself in silence while the world demanded you keep smiling, then somewhere in these pages, you will find yourself too.
This is not a book about breaking.
It is about what remains after.
CK Smalley