Get Heartset: The Evolution of the Soul

This is no soft story. It is the raw, soul deep reclamation of a Puerto Rican womanhood that refused to be a performance. Between the frantic "shoulds" of thirty-five and the wreckage of thirty-nine, the scaffolding of Maria Cruz’s life collapsed, shattering under the weight of failed relationships, exhaustion, and the paradox of control. Yet, in that collapse, an awakening began. Now forty-two, Maria stands on the other side. These poems are the map of that transition: a journey from surviving the weight to owning the power, and the sound of a woman who finally stopped asking for permission to exist.