The purpose of 'Unmasking The Pain' is not to male-bash or take revenge on the men who have hurt me. Its true purpose is to help men and women alike confront the issues in their lives that prevent them from experiencing healthy, happy, secure, mature relationships. I have tried to sound off to other women, but I find that too many are in denial and are still trying to cover up the reality of their own pain. Many times, by the time you finish sharing with them, the women friends are off gossiping about your problem with others rather than sitting with you, holding your hand and walking with you through the pain. I tried to tell the men in my life what pain they were causing, but they did not want to take responsibility for their behavior and blamed me for everything. I even bared my soul early in a new relationship, I guess, hoping he would understand what I had been through and not hurt me too. However, my sounding board soon became my dartboard as he very quickly inflicted new hurt upon old, unhealed wounds. It was then that I woke up to the reality that hurting people, unwilling to confront what ails them, are incapable of loving, only hurting. And so, I write. I write for myself. It only took a little over a week to express myself in these words but this book represents over twenty years of hurt and pain that I carried all bottled up inside. Writing this book has served as a much needed release valve as I found that expressing my pain in this way provided good therapy for a wounded heart. I call it my 11-day Therapeutic Wonder! I write for all my children: Andrew, Zoe, Destiny and the yet unborn (Danielle, born 2002). I do not want my son to become the kind of men expressed in thesepages. Neither do I want my daughters to experience this kind of pain at the hands of emotionally crippled men. So if I can help them to make good choices from an early age then my labor would not have been in vain. Also I hope to influence other fathers and mothers to commit to raising emotionally healthy sons and daughters. After all, it may be one of their children who has a relationship with one of mine. I write for the next generation. The women of the generation before me are not talking. No one ever told me about the hurts and pain. And no one ever told me how to get over. Many of them have not gotten over themselves, living lives of bitterness and anger, denying the existence of pain buried and suppressed for years on end. And until they are willing to confront their own issues and deal with the bad choices of the past they will continue on in their emotionally crippled state. They need healing too. I write because I want to be a stepping-stone and not a stumbling block to the generation of younger women who are hurting today and in need of answers. Sometimes just knowing that you are not alone is the first in the step towards healing. I write because raw naked emotions like, love and pain, scare people. We cannot run away from who we really are. Our ability to love and experience emotions like joy and pain is what separates us from the lower animal order. They make us human. And when we deny and suppress these feelings we become inhumane. I write because I want to open wounds, unmask pain and confront issues that we do not want to address. And until we women and men begin to look at ourselves, and this pattern of destructive behavior constantly being played out in our adultlives, we will never heal and experience the joy of happy relationships, rich in positive emotions. Healthy relationships we can model for our children. I write because I want to end the Cycle of Abuse! This book is more than a book of poetry. The book is deliberately designed as a help tool and is divided into two sections: Poetic Expressions and Private Journal. Poetic Expressions is where I took the time I needed to express myself. Private Journey is to give you an opportunity to express yourself in response to eac