Poems On Life's Journey

When my husband, Austin Hart, and I participated in the earthquake disaster relief, he discovered the corpse of his first love, Stacy Deleon, in the collapse zone. That night, Austin left a suicide note behind before jumping off the building with our son, Clifford Hart, in order to reunite with Stacy in the afterlife. Only then did I realize that both Austin and Clifford never cared about me, to begin with. When I was reborn, I returned to the moment when Austin first asked for a divorce. This time, I agreed to the divorce immediately. I even gave the custody of the three-year-old Clifford to Austin right away. Five years later, we meet again at an auction. Austin laces fingers with Stacy while taking Clifford's hand with the other. He mocks me, "It's only been five years, Kendra. You're really that shameless now, huh? You can't wait to latch onto me again now that you've found out I'm here!" Clifford mocks me as well. "Mom… Wait, you should be Ms. Powell to me now. You should stop pestering my dad already. My parents and I are living a very happy life right now." I just ignore them. Instead, I grab my daughter, Faye Gilmore, who has been sneaking food off the table, and steer her back to our seats. But Austin flies into a fit of rage instantly. A vein pops out of his hand, which is still laced with Stacy's fingers. "You really are shameless, Kendra Powell! We've only been separated for five years, yet you already have a daughter that old? I can't believe you're willing to resort to such despicable methods just to make me jealous! Which bastard did you have that bastard child with, huh?"

My best friend, Yara Campbell, got reborn back to the day she was to reunite with the richest family in town, the Waltons. She didn't want to relive her fate as the Waltons' marionette that was trapped in a gilded cage, so she refused to go home with them. That was why she didn't hesitate to push me out instead. As I gazed at Grace Robinson, whose fingers were adorned with diamond rings, and Raymond Walton, who looked like he was made of money, I instantly rushed toward them. There was no way I'd let this golden opportunity slip through my fingers, after all! Five years later, Yara shows up on the Walters' doorstep with a paternity test report in her hands. She then demands that I be cast out of the family. But she's too late. In the past five years, I'm no longer the replacement she had used on a whim back then. Now, I'm the second-in-command in Walton Group. No one in this family can possibly usurp my position from me now.

Ava Lane, my wife of five years, suddenly gets addicted to yoga. Whenever she visits the yoga gym, she'll stay there for the whole day. She often does yoga to the point that she forgets all about the time. As a result, she ditches our daughter, Daisy Statham, at the kindergarten, letting her burst into loud cries out of fear. As I cradle Daisy in my arms, I decide to confront Ava angrily. But she retains a nonchalant attitude. "You were the one who told me that I should train my body because of how weak I am! So why are you scolding me for exercising?" I no longer want to tolerate Ava's behavior, so I leave a divorce agreement behind and take Daisy away. Everyone accuses me of being dramatic, saying that nothing actually happened to my daughter. Ava responds by crying about the whole thing in front of my parents. She thinks I'm completely unreasonable. "If not for the fact that Jordan, a personal trainer, doesn't like my figure, I wouldn't have started learning yoga in the first place! And yet, now he tells me that I can't go for yoga anymore! What am I, his slave? Must I obey his every order?" I just point at Ava's trembling legs while mocking in return, "I can't do anything about how devoted you are to yoga at the end of the day. Once we're divorced, you might as well spend the rest of your life in that yoga gym!"

As a dive engineer, I need to go down into the shaft to retrieve a drill bit in order to speed up construction on the 800-million-dollar construction project before Independence Day. Little do I know that I've barely made my way down the shaft when I realize I don't have enough oxygen to last the journey. Amid my panic, I completely lose my sense of direction. So, I dig out my wireless radio in an attempt to communicate with my fiancee, Viola Jenkins. But all I hear is her laughter over the radio. "Aren't you all high and mighty, Elden? I'd like to see how long you can last underwater without oxygen!" Her first love, Ron Carey, adds, "Just sit back and watch the show, Viola! He'll definitely beg you to open the manhole cover for him when the time comes!" That's when I realize Viola and Ron have allied together to kill me. Not only have they closed the manhole cover, but they've also cut off my life-saving oxygen supply. After ensuring that the manhole cover cannot be moved at all, I begin crying for help weakly into the radio. "Hurry… Open the cover for me… I'm running out of oxygen…" Viola's contemptuous voice drifts from the radio. "It's only been five minutes. Why are you playing the pity card already? This is Ron's first time in a construction site, so he's inhaling some oxygen from the canister because he's already lacking in oxygen. You can wait for a while. "If you have the time to moan about the lack of oxygen, you might as well use it to retrieve the drill bit. Stop dilly-dallying around, Elden! You seriously think I'll keep you around if you don't pull your weight around here?" With gnashed teeth, I cover 65 feet downward in the shaft. With the last bit of oxygen in my lungs, I place my hands on the drill bit that's stuck in the deepest part of the shaft that can determine whether or not the 800-million-dollar construction project will be a hit or miss. I'd like to see if Viola and Ron will be able to reap the benefits from this project just by killing me off in the shaft!

She tried to win him back. The kidnappers did not get the memo. Nora Hale’s life used to read like one of her bestselling novels - perfect husband, dream career, book tours- she was living her best life. Now, after two years of crippling writer's block, looming deadlines, and a husband who has packed his bags, her story has hit a brutal plot twist, and Nora is desperate to have the happy ending she’s used to writing. Naturally, she does what any logical, emotionally sane woman would do – plan a dangerous trip to Paris to rekindle the spark with her husband (and maybe spark a new book while she’s at it). The plan? Simple. The outcome? Absolute chaos. Between real criminals, fake ransom notes, French police, and one soon-to-be ex-husband, Nora’s romantic rescue mission quickly turns into an international disaster. But somewhere between the mayhem and macarons, Nora and her husband rediscover something they’d lost – the spark that started it all. Now if only she can keep him from finding out the truth behind the worst (and best) idea she’s ever had before the credits roll. Because in love and fiction… sometimes the best stories are total disasters. Billionaire romance story.

When Steven Baxter, the heartthrob of the school, admits that he loves action movies the most, my childhood friend, Lisa Thornton, has my limbs strapped to four huge drones. During the flag-raising ceremony on Monday morning, the drones lift me high up in the air in front of the entire school. The students' laughter is deafeningly loud. The videos they take quickly go viral, too. I only get to return to the surface once the drones finally run out of power and make their descent automatically. With a wide grin on her face, Lisa unties me from the drones. "Steven loves action movies, so we had you cosplay the main character from the most popular Tom Cruise movie. "We grew up together since we were kids, Dominic. Surely you don't mind, right?" As I sit on the ground, Steven pulls Lisa into his arms before he starts guffawing at me. Tears soon streak down his face from all the laughing. "I can't believe you actually peed yourself!" "Ahahahaha!" I get up to my feet and walk away. From then on, I don't return to Lisa's side. But Lisa soon loses her mind. "We've known each other for ten years! Must you really do this to me?"

I become paralyzed after trying to save my wife. Seven years later, she holds a knife to our young son's neck and forces me to donate my kidney to her male best friend. She says I'm worthless now that I'm already paralyzed—what does it matter whether or not I have my kidneys? What she doesn't know is that I already lost a kidney many years ago when trying to save her. Now, she's taking away the only one I have left!

In my past life, I toiled away at the Lincoln family and treated my in-laws like they were a king and a queen. I also gave my stepson the best education possible and helped him get into a renowned college. Yet, I later ended up dead on the street. My stepson said, "You're not my mother. You'll never be her!" He breaks my legs, kicks me out of the house, and watches as I starve to death. It's only after my death that I find out he's the illegitimate son of my husband and his true love! When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day my husband, Simon Lincoln, brings my stepson home.

My adoptive parents' long-lost daughter came back. She's a wellness influencer. She eats from crystal bowls she "cleansed." Sleeps with a white noise machine. She will only ride in a custom, climate-controlled car. That's not all. She filled our family's Manhattan law firm with Himalayan salt lamps and energy crystals. The espresso in the conference room? Replaced with gluten-free, organic dandelion root tea. "The energy here is so murky," she'd say. "We need to cleanse the world with love and light!" My guilt-ridden parents gave her everything she wanted. Even my fiancé told me, "Ava, you stole twenty years of her Upper East Side life. Can't you cut her some slack?" The day of the final hearing for our firm's biggest case, the entire court had to wait for her to finish her "emotional cleansing meditation." The judge was furious. I stood up. Delivered a flawless closing argument. I won our client $500 million and secured the future of the firm. But at the party, she had a drunken breakdown, fell into the pool, and drowned. My parents and my fiancé blamed me for everything. "You always have to win, don't you? It was a simple, open-and-shut case. You couldn't even let her have that?" They had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. They destroyed my law license and my reputation. They even had me injected with a fatal overdose of sedatives. I died full of hate. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back. Back to the day she was crying on her Instagram Live, begging for the case. This time, I walked straight into our rival's law firm. This "sure-win" case? I'm going to make you lose everything.

My boss gives me 200 thousand dollars in cash so I can pay his workers their salaries. I leave the house to buy some envelopes to put the money in, but that's when my father lends the money to our neighbor so they can buy a house. I question him about it, but he says I know nothing about forging relationships. Even my mother and brother blame me for not keeping my things properly—they say I'm dumb for leaving money lying around when I know my father likes to lend money to others. Later, my boss fires me but doesn't call the cops. All he wants is for me to repay him. To do so, my father finds me a high-paying job. It's only when I get there that I realize I'm supposed to be an old man's housekeeper. On my first day there, he violates me. I want to call the cops, but my father tells me to be forgiving of him. After that, the old man's daughter thinks I seduced her father and has me beaten to death. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day my father lent money to our neighbor.