Vowed Rivalry: to have and to lose

Vowed Rivalry: to have and to lose is a poetry collection about loving deeply and mistaking potential for promise.

These poems explore the inner world of someone who repeatedly finds herself loving people who cannot love in return, not because she is unworthy, but because they do not feel worthy themselves. In trying to understand them, she begins to believe it is her responsibility to heal and restore what she didn't break. In doing so, almost-love, half-choosing, and relationships that feel intense but never fully arrive begin to take shape.

Through intimacy, restraint, longing, devotion, and letting go, Vowed Rivalry traces the quiet evolution toward choosing herself, without losing faith in aligned, wholehearted love. It is a journey through emotional patterning and the moment you realize that love is not meant to feel like uncertainty or negotiation, no matter how igniting and recognizable it may be.

Author: Candace D. Marquez Green
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Chosen Poetic Publishing, LLC
Published: 01/30/2026
Pages: 166
Weight: 0.37lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.35d
ISBN: 9798256103101