Merryhaven. It's supposed to be a place where troubled teens go when they somehow lose their way. When, like fragile, injured butterflies, they forget how to soar. For a group of teens, Merryhaven becomes the place where Marcus, Glory, Joseph, and Petey learn to heal one another and love one another. They learn that being broken doesn't necessarily mean the end. Sometimes brokenness is just the beginning.

We've all known love. We've all known loss. We've all experienced, at some point, the feeling of being inadequate. Every mother also knows the feeling of looking at her daughter and seeing herself at whatever age her daughter happens to be; we also imagine how they will grow and mature as they get older. With our sons, we picture their fathers and we imagine the men they will become. These are all feelings and emotions women experience at some time in their life. Women are inextricably bound by these similar emotions and feelings. It's why we can listen to a woman we meet sitting in the doctor's office or even the grocery store and listening to her, feel an instant connection. These poems seek to explore that connection that inextricably binds us all in the bond of sisterhood. There will be tears, there will be smiles, there will be joy, but above all there will be recognition. A recognition that we are all Skinny Dipping in the Pool of Womanhood.