By this time, this age, I feel like a withering 45-year old woman. Only half-alive, with drives that plunge then emerge all of a sudden from a dark, sullen place that no man would like to know, or wouldn’t be interested at all. And see that I am only 21, at this age I should feel 21 and nothing less or more.
Gretchen is a poet and essayist from the Philippines, where she embraces life with bipolar disorder and ADHD. Her confessional pieces unpack the complexities of grief, motherhood, relationships, intersections, and the human experience, garnering recognition from the Greg Grummer Poetry Contest and Navigator's Travel Writing Competition.
