Love Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Battling depression and trauma while journeying towards “the greatest love of all.” Award-winning journalist, Dalesa Moreno, knows how difficult yet rewarding her job can be. More challenging is reporting the truth about herself—raw, unedited, and unfiltered. Depression and loneliness didn’t keep Dalesa from working and becoming a success in her field, but she’s never felt close to love. The golden-framed awards and diplomas on her walls can’t illuminate the gloom in her heart. When Dalesa gets fed up with heartbreak and hurting, she attempts suicide but is discovered by her roommate in the nick of time. On suicide watch, she awakes in a sterilized bed, institutionalized and in regret, tossing and turning, with a rumination on the past, resentment about the present and seeing no future worth living. Hope is unfathomable until Romeo, an unknowingly handsome psychoanalyst, appears like a luminous beam from a lighthouse—lighting a way for Dalesa to see past the self-loathing haze, which suffocates her within her barred room. Realizing the hard work ahead of her, Dalesa untangles the roots beneath the blossoming chrysanthemums of her depression. Love Is in the Eye of the Beholder is a lyrical novel with over two dozen spoken-word and free verse poems about trauma recovery and empowerment.