<p><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">"You Are Not Alive" tackles the deepest questions haunting the human condition. What is existence? What is art? Does it even </span><em style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">make sense</em><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)"> to search for the meaning of life? Why do we die? How do we confront our inner demons? What does it feel like to be fragmented by trauma? The acclaimed Instagram poet Omar Esparza does not hold back when diving into these pressing issues, often wading through paradoxes with breathtaking lyricism.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">The first half of the collection confronts the issue of trauma as well as the psychological effects it has on survivors. It also tackles the philosophical quandaries that are often associated with the physical impact of trauma: depersonalization, fragmentation, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">The second half of the work is a literal journey from the abyss of addiction to the author's reconciliation with the prospect of eternal nothingness. It is not a turn to religion. It is not a rejection of religion either. It is a call to embrace our mortality </span><em style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">through </em><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">the acceptance of our being the All, and vice versa. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">Dividing the two sections is a collection of images representing snippets of the poems found throughout the book. The images can also be found on various social media platforms. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)">The reader should not expect a path toward redemption in the traditional sense. This is not a self-help book. This is an inspirational group of poems but with a dark caveat. It is a guide for learning to accept the unacceptable facts of the human condition. It is one person's quest to transform the belly of the Whale of Nothingness into a real, concrete, worldly, finite Paradise.</span></p>