Dear Friends,

If you’re reading this, I need your help. It’s been 241 days since I last posted on here and in those seven months the situation I was trying to salvage turned into the worst case scenario. Though I posted a piece called ‘Intermission’ in February earlier this year, I wasn’t able to raise enough to sort out the internet situation and with most of my income coming from writing work I’ve been doing online over the years, I lost access to my main means of income, writing projects and a lot of other opportunities that could’ve helped me at that time.

All this happened while I was trying to raise money to salvage the situation and I fell behind on rent, this led to an eviction that I wasn’t prepared for by any means. With emergency funds depleted and all my things tossed out, I had to sell off some things and find the cheapest housing possible, it was either that or end up homeless at some point. Between squatting with old friends and moving around I was able to find a place with the only catch being that it was in an area known for gang violence. Most of the money that was raised via my Ko-Fi (through your support) went to making attempts to secure the place against robbers and also to sorting out the rent.

I’m still holed up in the area trying to raise what I will need to get my old place back and get back to safety but with the Internet situation becoming even more limited, I’ve done the best that I can to reach out to the ones I could reach out to between friends and even within the community here but it has remained a struggle and I don’t know at this point if I’ll make it to the end of the year.

I feel ashamed to put the whole thing out in this type of manner and I was really hoping that I would be able to come back with a positive update but as hard as I’ve tried, that hasn’t been the case. I was robbed in May, a situation that nearly cost me my life and between then and now they’ve been even more attempts as the area has continued to heat up with these violent exchanges and sadder news came when PayPal permanently limited my account last month, everything I had left in there was for survival, for food and for other personal needs, now I have no access to the account.

I’m grateful for all the support that has come in one way or the other especially since this all began back in February, your support has kept me going even on days when I’ve felt it would be better to simply end myself, I’ve been able to claw through. I do not know how bad the issues will get in the area but I don’t want to stick around long enough to find out, I have to make it to the end of the year.

A friend from the community here helped me set up a GoFundMe to help raise awareness and get support for the situation, if you’ve read this far and you would like to help, I’ve linked the page here. I no longer have access to my PayPal but if you would like to support any further, that can be done here, it would mean the world to me.

I’m hoping to be able to make it back to a safer area before the year closes out, I’ve been able to raise a bit for the down payment I need to make to leave this area but it won’t be near enough, it’s been a tiring round of weeks and months and I’m actually surprised I’ve made it this far, I have to say thank you to Bob Metivier - poet, singer/songwriter, composer and Kera Hollow for the support,

Thank you too for taking time out to read this and for being here, It means a lot to me 🙏🏾🤍

Intermission II was originally published in Catharsis Chronicles on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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.

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 🙌🏾🤍

Cold December night and redness finds me

pinned into place by silences flocking,

Something inside me sits and watches,

scratching like the sounds of bones unlocking,

An unflocking; a reminder that there’s no way to outswim the brew.

Sometimes I feel like I’m someone’s character,

A protagonist tossed into a jungle of archetypes,

A chained memory doomed to re-loop,

A captive bird left to sketch sad evenings in song.

These eyes cradle a blacker meaning,

The smoke of an old war that left me careening, echoes of the violence I did to my own heart,

A place of shrieks clipped by the shape of silence…

I am an event inhabited by a cry,

Scorched to the roots by the sound of the hours, they widen and die —

yet I bite down and bleed, unfreed and catching breathes between the lines.

Poetry doesn’t cure but it understands,

The cold has withdrawn its fiery tentacles,

I let the night craddle my incoherencies,

I will see to it that death is proud to take me.

© Praise Frank

notes: I was listening to Vancouver Sleep Clinic’s ‘Someone To Stay’, pondering on how hard it gets to refuse the refuse when it is fused into the heart becoming a living, breathing, growing nightmare and I still pause to ask myself ‘how do you fare?’, still wondering how bad it has to get before there’s enough pain to re-use, to re-ignite and turn into plot development, that’s what it’s about isn’t it?

Reaching out leads to unanswered messages, dicing up the pain into lines leads to more nakedness, a stark revelation of this brilliant darkness that reminds me that people forget that it’s easy to preach until it’s time to do. I’m the prey still scurrying and praying. Santa, do you remember when I was thirteen writing you letters to give to my Mum on the other side? Do you remember turning your reindeers away the year Dad died? I lied, I still lie, I died and I still die and the people don’t hear me anymore, how do I swim through this floor?

The prayer list stretches, I can hear the year packing up, this inbox is covered with ghosted emails, rejection emails and slips and I think I must catch my breathe on this turn, tell me, did I fly too close to the sun or am I too used to burning? Suffering is religious when done right but still, an unrelenting pulse of light flickers, and I’m trying to believe that I can rewrite this plight.

It is a blessing to have a place to share my pieces and engage with other brilliant minds so thank you to the curators of this wonderful pub.

Your support goes a long way too, if you’d like to go further with that, consider tipping me here. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas too and thank you all for reading 🙌🏾🤍

Icarus III was originally published in Catharsis Chronicles on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

That caterpillar never saw its wings when it became a butterfly,

contorting, shrinking, shut-off and kissing darkness,

My problem with growth is that it happens underground, tucked away from the ears of sound,

masked away from the eyes of sight..

I knew!

I opened up, catastrophically aware,

Every thud, every prick, all the scathing steps of fear,

Bound to pain and far from gain, Stretched to the point of wear and tear —

And the digging deepened, shrieks stiffened, I stitched my face into a knife-like smile,

New clothes, shoes, masks, the show had to go on

But dressing up felt like dressing a wound.

It is all I have lost that has set me free,

An uncaging, a funeral of yesterdays,

I heard those evening birdsongs disarming my hold; running gentle fingers through the knots of my soul.

Instead of new branches I grew deeper roots

Taking back my halo from the vices of winter,

The shell breaks open and the butterfly flutters,

A miracle with wings bringing beauty to its world.

©Praise Frank

notes: There’s a quote I remember pondering on that says that an unfinished map is enough, a reminder that faith can bind worlds, pulling the unseen into reality. These things make living interesting and fulfilling regardless of the circumstances we have to face. The unknown has always been scary but so is the potential of the human mind.

This poem was inspired by a short video I saw, showing the progress of a butterfly, the metamorphosis. I never saved the video but taking that process in was beautiful and inspiring and perhaps what struck me more was the fact that the butterfly never sees how beautiful its wings are but it does go on to play its role within the ecosystem.

Progress responds to capacity and all that we go through prepares us in some way for who we want to become, it’s been hard to believe this lately as I’ve faced eviction and scathing struggles in the last few weeks but I am glad that it has not kept me from supporting my friends here and also finding time to search myself and stay moving.

I’m ever grateful for a space to be able to share my thoughts and musings so thank you to the curators and editors of this amazing pub and thank you too for all the continued support 🙌🏾🤍

Wabi-sabi was originally published in Catharsis Chronicles on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Clasped within the hands of this gentle sort of horror —

I put my ears against the night, heavy, heaving, waving at old ghosts,

A continuous sieving bound betwixt irretrievables I forgot to forget.

This is the hour with sleep at its most seductive,

The slip up is most likely, the darknesses are convening,

I left wielding weapons but came back as the weapon,

Contorted and molded on the search for gain in pain,

A circus of gods in the middle of me,

Stain and rain; navel of the sea,

Some instincts run far deeper than reason,

The ones you feel to the center of your soul..

Take my sad thanks and help me wade these painful waters,

I have wandered from the shelves and barely fit inside myself,

A gatherer of dreams and shrapnels of memories,

I’ve cocked back this pen and attempted to bring back the dead.

Uncontainable!

They snicker and evade,

A subtle scent takes me back to my Father’s arms,

I hear my heart beat like a sword on a shield

Limping like a dead thing, crowded by a roaring absence

Sic itur ad astra

Such is the way to the stars,

To run faster, shine brighter then implode to leave a scar,

It’s midnight at the end of June,

These shaky hands pick up the ruins,

Heavy heart and bloody head —

but I remain unbowed.

©Praise Frank

notes: I’ve found that rain makes a memory more intimate in its own way as the drizzling hasn’t stopped since I finished writing this. Between my birthday earlier this month and Father’s day and all the happenings in-between, some days it was hard to tell what the weather was inside me with all that I was slinging in this mind but I’ve done my best to stay moving, to stay praying and grateful.

June recedes to come back again and I’m glad I faced the empty page once again for it has never judged nor complained, it has always allowed me to bleed, to let go and reset. This was inspired by a little reflection, a bit of self study and I hope you find something to keep you going from it, I must say too that being able to sit with some of your amazing pieces has been a blessing to me as I’m a reader first, keep sharing :)

I’m ever grateful for a space to be able to share my thoughts and musings so thank you to the curators and editors of this amazing pub and as always, Thank you for reading 🙌🏾🤍

The Executioner was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

That emeraldry is a defier of questions,

Edenic greenery massaging the eye of the mind.

Nature held my hands when the times were unkind,

When the nightmares dressed up and arrested my days…

Stillness, pulsing, steadiness in clarity,

I learned to observe, to unbutton, to untie,

To dance with the currents when the season turns its back.

I told the sea that I was drowning on land,

Moon cupped my face like a sorry mother;

Rain touched me when I was crowded by absence —

and wind undid my lethargy reminding me of resurrection.

Birdsongs concocted a colorful silence,

Earth unbuttoned my haste and showed me patience,

Late nights carried a profounder sound, a loosely knitted gentleness that fused me to the muse..

The language of life is cycles and seasons,

Reasons etched into a montage of moments,

Pilgrims see, observe and let go —

But we strain our hearts with yester-years, forgetting that we all leave..

Drift, dream,

Dare to let go,

Cast yourself, you are the spell!

The lesson of nature is that it’s one big dance

And to find your rhythm, you must give life a chance.

©Praise Frank

Ouroboros was originally published in Catharsis Chronicles on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why die so much to live so little? Stiffled, brittle, a breathing thing under countless adulteries,

I’m sitting at the car park and staring at nothing, plotting my rotting to the siege of bells,

They insert themselves between me and myself,

desecrating the sanctity of the silence between thoughts.

They said writing poetry would get me nothing,

Just hunger, more tears and journeys deep into myself.

A gentle rain is coming to dye this air,

I fear they were right, I watch my dismemberment..

I’m starving but I write,

I’m unstitched but I write,

The world purrs and exhales late at night, but I write

Death engraves its date and gently whispers, but I write,

There is simply no way out of the mind.

Scorched to the roots, an atrocity of sunsets,

I unclap the final act to turn epilogues to prologues,

I have fallen a long way into this long blackness,

Facing empty hallways that replaced museums; the ones I gently filled with remnants of sanity, bone-white light and flickers of life.

I walk into myself,

A spare part in a spare part,

The echoes ring out like the unlocking of bones,

Empty seats, dark theater, this is what it means to laugh at your tragedy.

Nowhere to run,

Nowhere to turn,

Lame in the memory and ready to burn,

The autopsy begins at the turn of abyss to bliss,

Unpoemed, unseen, unfit for love,

This dimension is fading but still,

I write.

©Praise Frank

notes: Ah well, I’ve always written my way out regardless, I thought I would be able to write more this month and do my best to support other poets in my area, it’s the 24th day and April has been a pleasant disaster. From my router crashing, to the return of insomnia and foodless days, nothing that’s new to me but I wrote about it anyway because it reins in the sanity.

Perhaps this was also written as a way to encourage myself and I certainly hope you can find something in it that encourages you. Keep writing, keep turning up, they say the consistent person can walk on water.

I’m ever grateful for a space to be able to share my thoughts and musings so thank you to the curators and editors of this amazing pub and as always, thank you for reading 🙌🏾🤍

Stripe is not available in my country, this prevents me from being able to apply for the MPP but if you’d like to support me further, you can consider tipping me here. I appreciate your kindness.

The Brink II was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cessation is all,

Nothingness, fall,

No silence is louder than the steelness of this stillness,

I stare at the white muted faces of unanswered letters,

The ones that I poured out praying for your return.

I lost dimensions and buried many selves,

Dragged along my pieces and dusted all the shelves,

It’s Mother’s Day again and absence holds my hand,

You return in dreams that I couldn’t understand…

I remember your smile through the eye-hole of memory,

Fragments of warmth that kept me clawing through those winters,

Very early in my life, it was too late

Oh! How I wallowed and swallowed, asking questions that had questions

I wonder if you recall that evening walk,

How the wind and the moon wrapped their arms around us,

How the silence of the evening gently offered up itself,

How the warmth of your touch undid that dynasty of cold.

Beads of swallowed tears now escape unto this page,

This white wall stares back and March is withering,

Mother, I hold unto that warmth, unto those moments

In my dreams they never end ,

I will live on to make you proud.

© Praise Frank

notes: Though those moments were relatively short-lived, my Mother taught me the meaning of kindness and love, the kind that perseveres and I have to say that coming to the realize and accept that she was truly no more was a shock to my consciousness that I’ve barely recovered from but the beauty, the warmth, that gentle sort of persistence, they’ve always found their way to me in times that I doubted myself. Even the ones we think are gone are always looking out for us and I’ve always wondered, if you’re happy in your dreams, does that count?

I strung this together from old letters and scribbles I wrote in my younger years when I couldn’t bear the weight of such absence, all that clawing, all that wandering and I decided that I would allow it all to fuel me, to push me towards a fuller life, one that moves with love and kindness as she showed me.

Happy Mothers Day to all the beautiful and powerful women here and out there! Thank you to the curators and editors of this amazing pub and as always, thank you for reading 🤍

In Memoriam was originally published in Catharsis Chronicles on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But what do you know about that?

Newly wedded vices, time spent, sacrifices,

Life’s undoing of the blueprint,

It was never going to bloom just because of one stint,

A little spark that was witnessed in the harshness of that tint..

Silence after silence, this unscreaming massacre —

jostles its way to the middle of me,

Old grievances battering for my sanity,

Vanity dressed like freedom;

A private blitzkrieg!

I am naked, rattled, bleeding from my mind

But what do you know about that?

The “hello’s” you adored,

The ones that came like love but left you floored,

Lifeless, staring yourself in the eye

As you quietly snuffed out your flickering halo.

Some things of this world are indigestible,

Injustices in daylight, mornings made of mournings,

That last shrill cry re-arranged the elements,

They come in two’s and tens, let me kneel into the end.

“Also everything returns, but what returns is not what went away.’’

— Louis Gluck

© Praise Frank

This blank page waited for me like a never aging sage

me, calamity’s magnet, firmly fixed into parenthesis,

I traversed that necropolis, jitters of the wilderness; those labyrinthine harmonies, voices laying siege —

But they met their extinction when I reached for the pen.

I heard the rain fall, the slip and slosh of water,

I listened to its gossip, that lose vernacular —

But another type of redness bothers me, a bone-deep longing latched to nothing,

I tire of hurting myself from within, still bloodied, raw, daring to remain…

So I turned to the page to defy the questions,

A brunt of the seasons; tasted, tested, stretched out like the sea and unaltered by eyes,

This is what it means to find meaning,

to go intact upon impact, to embrace the aftermath,

These coils of silence began to speak to me,

Unwinding, unfurling like some ambrosial revelation,

A nicely-dusted inclemency delivered with gentleness.

The words are returning ignited, a fire work of echoes

Drumming up a fever in the forehead of this darkness,

Shall I sink into their syncing or stare back at this starkness?

Non! They clamber unto pages, blameless as daylight, urging me to unpack my pyramided mind.

White is simply a complexion of the mind,

The meaning of zero, the gate to rebirth,

This is how you take your foot out of the graveyard, past the the stench of nightmares, past the unwelcomed collisions.

Light finds its way to you through the incisions,

Through the dismantled ‘almosts’ and heavy decisions,

Rise, encounter, fall, (then) bloom,

The moon is still the moon in all of its phases.

© Praise Frank

notes: I began to fear that I had spent too much time away from writing because I tend to get away to allow the mind its dose of nothingness, to allow it to wander but picking up the pen again felt quite refreshing. The mind contracts and expands in proportion to what we feed it and what’s amazing is that it can be filled up and decluttered, white stands for purity, for newness and I’ve often wondered if that is the mind’s complexion.

This piece was inspired by a Bruce Lee quote I usually paraphrase, the most useful cup is an empty cup and dealing with waves of grief has taught me the importance of emptying one’s mind, of letting go sometimes.

The word ‘Komorembi’ (木漏れ日) is a Japanese word that means ‘sunlight leaking through leaves’ the kind you see on an evening walk or on a walk through the woods.

It’s a blessing to have a place where I can share my pieces from time to time and interact with brilliant minds so thank you to the curators of this amazing pub and thank you too for reading 🤍

Stripe is not available in my country, this prevents me from being able to apply for the MPP but if you’d like to support me further, you can consider tipping me here. I appreciate your kindness.

木漏れ日: Komorembi was originally published in Catharsis Chronicles on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.