Daddy Issues (Paperback)

DADDY ISSUES: Inserts from the Diary of a Broken Woman is a body laid on the table and a heart open.

These poems move through abandonment, jealousy, infidelity, shame, loneliness, numb survival, rage, and finally something like mercy. A daughter speaks to the father who walked away. A woman explains how that absence trained her to beg men to stay. A wife confesses the ways she crossed the line. A mother says, without apology, that the "strong Black woman" costume is killing her.

Nothing here is romanticized. The voice is unfiltered, intimate, and grown: "I needed 'hey princess.' I needed steady hands." The book holds the ache of watching a father give his love to another child, the kind of humiliation that breeds a lifetime of "please don't leave." It sits in the aftermath of being touched, lied to, cheated on, recorded, accused, and used as proof for laughs.

It wrestles with the way soft turns into armor just to make it through the day. But this is not just trauma tourism. This is record-keeping.

Across these pages, a woman names her damage, defends her tenderness, and refuses to carry everybody else's expectations. She speaks to the men in her life, to partners, to the court of public opinion, and to God. She admits the mess and still claims her beauty, her motherhood, her right to rest, her right to softness, her right to be seen without being told to "be strong."

Lena Larice is a mother, storyteller, and creative thinker whose work lives at the intersection of observation, honesty, and lived experience. She writes with the clarity of someone who pays attention to people, to patterns, and to what the body and mind quietly carry.

Her voice is grounded, conversational, and reflective, shaped by real life rather than performance. Whether exploring creativity, humor, healing, or storytelling, Lena approaches her work with curiosity, practicality, and a respect for complexity. She is especially interested in how people learn, cope, and make meaning-without shortcuts, platitudes, or spectacle.

Informed by her study of psychology and her background in film and creative analysis, her work invites readers to slow down, notice themselves, and think more clearly about their inner and outer worlds. She believes insight should be usable, creativity should be accessible, and growth should feel human.

Lena writes for readers who value honesty over polish and understanding over perfection.