As a nurse, the grim realities of life often confront you. Every day, you witness death and suffering in all its forms, and the anguish echoes in your mind long after you go off duty. If you don’t release the pain from your mind, it will consume you. Coping with the darkness is a highly individual process. To me, writing poetry was as calming as taking Prozac. It was a place of refuge that allowed me to express myself freely and without reservation. This book is a compilation of my poems and the stories that inspired them.