Lungs Like Elephants (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780578775005)

This poetry collection follows April through her twenties as she moves around the country finding herself, her husband, and the healing she always wanted. It is a coming of age story told through poems that delve deep into the emotions that come with all of life's stages. She candidly examines her experiences as a survivor of depression and anxiety, a child of addiction, and an imperfect person looking for true love while learning to love herself.

April no longer wants to drown in life's waves, she wants Lungs Like Elephants.

"An exercise in honesty and catharsis, Lungs Like Elephants champions a heart-on-my-sleeve ethos across its eclectic collection of poems. Though they vary greatly, April's open-hearted wrestling ties these poems together into a candid journey of growth that feels true-to-life. The poems ping-pong between topics and time as she seeks to come to terms with where she has been, where she is, and where she is going. April writes about mistakes, anxiety, heartbreak, and addiction while also gushing over her husband and finding beauty and joy in her past failures.

To put it simply, life is difficult and complicated and beautiful and worth it and hard and beautiful. We start and fail and try again. We end up finally getting somewhere a little more each time, no matter how difficult the journey. This is the spirit of Lungs Like Elephants: April laying bare her life, in all its pain and joy, the inconsistencies and all, and boldly, bravely grappling for herself and her future."

-Chris Bernstorf