Cynthia Primm's book of poems, I'll Trade My Sorrow, along with her prose selections explaining the situations and timing of these poems makes for emotional reading.

The last stanza of her poem "Music" seems to sum up her hopes through the ordeals she went through:

The music dances in my head,
The rain comes tumbling down,
I need someone to come to me
And turn my world around.

In each of these periods the situations change, but the author is still obsessed with finding someone to love her. Due to her background she finds that hard to do because she could not love herself.  The poem "Pink and Gray" gives the reader an idea of what Primm thought of herself:

I'm just a form
Of pink and gray,
Like a grave
With flowers planted
And the petals pulled away.
To be blown
Into the wind
Unwillingly

The subtitle, "Trading the Pain of Yesterday for a Journey That Frees the Soul" suggests the reader will see some poems that reflect this new-found freedom, but the poems never come.  Maybe they will be published in a new book of poems.  One poem, "Little Bird That Sings" suggests an end to hopeless times:

Look to the
light, my friend.
Feel the
warmth of tomorrow...
for little bird
of sorrow,'the warmth will
come

This small book of poems illustrates what can happen when love is taken from our lives.