⚠️ Warning: This book may cause ugly crying, sudden healing, and unexpected bursts of self-love.

I wasn’t just buried. I was shattered.
Not metaphorically completely.
Into jagged pieces so small I didn’t believe they could ever fit back together.

I’m Carmen Lea, a woman who has walked through hell more than once… and still found her way back to herself.

A child of divorce, raised in a home marked by addiction, emotional absence, and silence disguised as strength, I learned young that love had conditions and that speaking up often made things worse. I was the quiet kid, the overlooked one. Bullied. Outcast. I turned my pain inward until my body became the battleground decades of shame, yo-yo dieting, and self-loathing.

Even when I smiled, I never felt seen.
Even when I healed, I broke again.
My second marriage nearly destroyed me gaslighting, betrayal, and manipulation stripped away everything, including my trust in myself.

But the truth? I’ve survived two divorces (five, if you count my parents’), raised my daughters alone, and done the hardest work of all learning to love myself.
Not the pretty, curated version. The gritty, ugly-cry, baby-step kind. The kind where you choose yourself in a whisper… and then again in a roar.

 Unshattered: From Wreckage to Radiance, One Poem at a Time is a teaching memoir in verse a poetic roadmap through trauma, truth, and transformation. Each poem peels back another layer of pain and invites the reader to do the same: to face their wreckage, release their guilt, and rise radiant.

It’s for anyone who’s ever felt too broken, too tired, or too far gone. A reminder that healing isn’t linear — and self-love isn’t selfish; it’s survival.

You’ll love this book if you’re ready to:

• Stop seeking validation and start living from within
• Find strength in vulnerability and peace in imperfection
• Let go of guilt, forgive yourself, and reclaim your worth

Unshattered isn’t just a story it’s an experience.
A mirror held up to your own healing, and a hand reaching through the wreckage saying, “You can do this too.”

It’s the kind of book you gift to the friend who’s losing hope, the one hiding pain behind a brave face, or anyone still learning to love themselves again.
We all know that someone deserves to remember that they were never too shattered to heal.

📖 Self-love first. Kindness always. Live from within.