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Intermission

3 min readFeb 8, 2026

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A call for support

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‘a place called peace..’ sketch by author

Dear Friends,

If you’re reading this, I need your help. I wrote a piece titled ‘The Brink’ some months back concerning the breakdown of my router which I had saved up through the start of last year to get. As expensive as it was, I never thought that a random breakdown like that would lead to it needing constant repair and literal resuscitation and since most of my earnings and income come from work I do online, I had the means to keep up with the repairs, hoping I would eventually be able to make enough to get a new one, perhaps something of the same quality or better, but that did not work out. I was only able to stay afloat while dealing with expenses because of the support from the community here.

All of that spiraled into uncertainty and displacement when it finally crashed for good and between the closing months of 2025 and now, I did the best that I could to meet project deadlines, between squatting at different spots and borrowing/sharing internet with neighbors and reaching out to the few that I could reach out to for support but I realized quickly that all that was not sustainable as it has never been my thing to be a nuisance.

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A lot of this would’ve been easier for me if the main public library here offered free or even useful internet but even after finding my way down there, I was met with the harsh reality that it didn’t. I faced an eviction at some point and if not for the support I got from a few on here, this wouldn’t even be a salvageable situation. Again, I must say thank you so much (I want to tag them all so badly but I have to keep this brief).

Even as I write this, my hands won’t stop shaking, all I have ever put out on here has always been laced into poetry but even with reaching out, I began to fear that I was becoming a nuisance to some, the very thing I dislike being. The truth is, Band-Aids don’t heal broken bones, I need to raise enough to get a new router and the lack of Internet has continued to limit my means. That hasn’t stopped me from supporting the many that I enjoy reading and learning from on here because I’ve always been a reader first before I mustered up the courage to dissect my own abyss and put it out here. I don’t think I can do this on my own.

I do not publish this in ignorance of the fact that everyone has something going on in their lives, we’re all busy outside of the community here and lately Medium has only been getting worse with these new updates.. I just thought it would be best to ask at least, to make the attempt so I know if it all falls apart again for a season, I didn’t go down without reaching out.

If you’ve read this far and you would like to help, you can do that here or via my Ko-Fi, it would mean the world to me.

I have to say thank you to Laurie Perez and Marcia Abboud for the encouragement concerning this, it’s hard to believe that this is my first post for 2026 but I believe it all gets better, there’s nothing to lose.

Thank you too for reading and for being here, you’re all always in my prayers 🙌🏾🤍

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Praise Frank
Praise Frank

Written by Praise Frank

Here to share my poems and short pieces, poetry is therapy and writing is life.