This poem is a bargain! Can you figure out why?

On one hand, this obviously has a deeper meaning, but on the other hand, what an idiotic ****!

If you're curious, the pens and sheets I use are BIC Atlantis® Exact Retractable Ball Pens on TOPS Docket Gold Writing Pads.

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Luke 16:19-31

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Also, if you want pictures of my cute dog Tymba, check this poem on Instagram! (@alekthepoet)

The poem has nothing to do with Yemen, but to update you on that, the situation in Yemen is getting much worse, which is odd and unfortunate to say considering what the situation is already.

A ceasefire between various forces, which began because of the outbreak of Covid-19, has ended, and with its conclusion the country has erupted into violent clashes.

The Houthi rebels are reportedly hiding the severity of the Coronavirus outbreak among their territories, making it more difficult to aid.

And UNICEF is reporting that its $479 million appeal for Yemen is less than 40% funded, and unless it receives $30 million by the end of June, operations concerning WASH - Water, Sanitation, And Hygiene - will have to shut down. "This means UNICEF will not be able to provide fuel to operate water pumping stations, or de-sludge sewage, or maintain crumbling water and sanitation infrastructure", Marixie Mercado, spokesperson for the agency. "It means we will not be able to distribute basic family hygiene kits that include soap, which is so critical for preventing both cholera and COVID in a context where millions don't have access to hand-washing facilities."
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How can you help? Assimilate, donate, and spread awareness, or ADaSA.

If you go to my Instagram account, @alekthepoet , in my bio there's a link to a Linktree, and the first two boxes will provide you with information on what is going on. The first link will take you to a report by Human Rights Watch, and it details the travesties that make up the crisis. The second link will take you to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, which goes into detail on the political and military side of what is happening and why.

The other boxes provide multiple reputable organizations that you can donate to, or aid in other ways. As you can tell from the information above, those trying to provide aid need money and resources, and they need them soon, so if there is anything you can donate, or you can ask someone else to donate, please do.

Finally, letting others know lets them do the above. Whether that's just bringing it up in conversations, reposting on various social media sites, or sending the information in a large newsletter, it will all help if you direct them to learn and donate.
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Am I doing anything else besides the above?

Yes. I will contact various people in the US Congress to get something going there, both in offering more aid and stopping the supplies of weaponry to the Saudi Arabia military. I know it sounds vague to say "get something going", but it's more complex than that and I promise there's more to it and that there's a reason for my vagueness.

I am also putting together a fundraiser, of which the proceeds will go to the organizations above and will include shirts, stickers, and a catchy slogan that can help us in raising awareness. I'm in the logistics phase, so bear with me, and in the meantime donate to the organizations directly because they desperately need it now.

But I hope to have it up and running soon.
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Hopefully the above info helped. And I hope you enjoyed the poem, which is still what I do, though less these days.

The harbinger of death

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This is a poem that a friend of mine wrote and asked me to edit. I thought it would be less work for me this week, which would’ve been great since it’s my birthweek (my 25th on May 25th). Nope, it was just as much work. Maybe even more because crafting someone else’s work is not the same as doing your own. But they loved the finished version so much they asked me to share it with their name under a pseudonym. So, here you go!

Saudade - A word in European and Brazilian Portuguese defined by a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.

Thanks for reading!

I am filled with so much love! And in more ways than one. I'm in love with my friends, my family, my dog. I'm in love with people in general, and strangers ("the stranger the bettaaa..."). I'm in love with my new video games and books. I'm in love with the wonderful venues I frequent. I'm in love with dancing and singing. I'm in love with someone who is so kind and sweet and smart and warm and caring and **** and cute and strong-willed and skillful and something that I can't explain but I feel it when I see them. And this poem is helping me love one other thing.

This may sound like I’m a comedian who laughs at my own jokes, but this poem made me tear up. I didn’t cry while writing it, though. When I work, I’m too focused on performing surgery to take all the emotions in. But once I sat back and read it as it is, it hit me like a 16 ton weight.

I've suffered, and still live with, such debilitating depression I've tried to **** myself four times. I've lied to friends about how I got bruises on my face while I hid the bite marks on my arms. I've pushed so many beautiful people away to make sure I don’t drag them down and unintentionally yet inevitably, rip them apart. I've drunk enough in one sitting to **** a person, without the hesitancy that a sense of self-preservation should bring. And I’m so ashamed and disgusted with myself getting my thoughts stirring in the morning is like jumping into a hurricane.

While I wrote this poem for you readers to take in, I ended up saying something to myself I didn’t think I could. It feels otherworldly. It even seems wrong, like I’m just waiting to sabotage every syllable. And I've spoken words like this before, only to throw them into a fire I've lit with hate. But I wrote this without hesitation. It flowed through my fingers, through a pen onto a page and then through a keyboard onto a word processor.

And I’m crying from the pain of remembering my destruction, and the joy of thinking I could be my friend. One who will listen and validate and soothe and advise and cheer me on when no one else is there.

I’m sure this mood, too, shall pass. But I’m holding on to this weird feeling of self-love for as long as I can.

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https://www.alekthepoet.com/that-page-where-you-read-my-stuff/the-flaming-raven-in-the-desert

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A poem on love, loss, and complications. Oh, and here's my book, Up Until Now: http://a.co/8Ed9JyF

I often write my poems while listening to songs on repeat, and the two I had playing during this one was "Oh Death" by Noah Gundersen and "In The Woods Somewhere" by Hozier. Check them out!

And I tagged this poem as time management because, as great as actual practicable techniques and tactics and strategies are, sometimes you just need to be inspired to stop hanging on in quiet desperation (despite it being the English way).

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Wait... what?!

For the crisis hotline: 1–800–273–8255 ; they are also available for online chat

When one tries to take their life enough times, suicide becomes part of one's identity.

It is an odd reality for those who have attempted more than once (with some circumstantial exceptions). It's a reality that is very hard to relate to others.

It makes talking about suicide easier, yet reaching out for help so much harder. When it's a common theme in your thoughts, discussing it, beyond the black-and-white ideals and lack of humour normal people are used to, isn't as heart-wrenching.

Yet, when we're at our lowest, it's not a shock to us. We're used to it, far too used to it. We're not just thinking "I don't want this pain anymore", or "I don't deserve to live". What's also ingrained in us is a more violent "I ought to die", and "Someone needs to **** me". Our thoughts have escalated beyond a moment of extreme self-pity or grief and has become a perpetual affair of severe self-hatred and shame, a thought proccess that feels instinctual and automatic. And when that's where one's at, when one's death seems like something that should happen, reaching out for help seems unlikely.

I'm likely not going to make waves in suicide prevention. But I can at least make some of you aware that multiple suicide attempters are not in the same mindset as others. They may need help that's different than the norm.

I am sharing this because I know what it's like. I have four attempts under my belt. I know what it's like to feel you shouldn't be alive, like you're already dead but still somehow walking around. Like you started drowning a long time ago and just haven't stopped. And I rarely reach out. This last Tuesday I didn't reach out, and I was right on the edge, ready to step off. I instead wrote this poem, and then this small essay. The vulnerability I needed to be this honest fueled whatever resiliance I had. And, I guess I just beared it until the agony of my triggering, trauma filled thoughts passed.

I'm still alive, obviously, for the hundredth time, but some others aren't. And that's why I'm sharing this.

Please make sure you're in a stable position to read this poem, and if you're not in a stable position to read it, don't do the stupid stuff I do and instead call that number that Logic taught you: 1-800-273-8255.

(And please excuse any humor or lightness that I might express about this topic, now or in the future. I'm very, very intimate with it, and by my own experience and what I know of others is that, the closer and deeper you're in it personally the more humor you can both find in it and need from it. Though to each their own.)

Also, I didn't know this as I wrote the poem, but October is National Depression Month, and, in particular, today, October 11th, is National Depression Screening Day. Do yourself a favor and get checked out, especially if you can relate to my writing or share any of the more typical symptoms.

Not done intentionally, but this poem seems to go with my other poem, "Lighter". A continuation... or maybe the opposite perspective? What do you think?

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