jasminesuntrell

[jasminesuntrell]

Losing Isaiah

On June 17, 2024 , my mother, daughter, and I were watching what would become the Celtics first championship winning game since 2008, when my chosen sister came into my often unlocked home to help sort through the wave of panic she was experiencing from the news she had just been given. When I remember what she said, I can hear the TV and the breaks in her voice but I can’t visualize anything else. I think I subconsciously want to forget. Make the reality unreal.

She told us that Isaiah had been shot. That his younger brother had come to her home, the one next to mine, looking for her son, Darrius, and that Isaiah had been shot. Right down the street.

Family is not exclusively biological. I became Auntie Jasmine to Darrius and his sister Daisha in 2007. I have known Isaiah Olugbemi since about 2007. I have been his neighbor. The auntie of one of his best friends. I have loved on him and all these kids turned grown men and women. I fed them. I fussed at them. I loved them. I covered them. I never could have imagined this would be how I would lose one of them.

The images in these slides contain things I have written in moments of unfiltered grief in the last year. Losing Isaiah and the way we lost him dredged up so many things I pushed deep down in me and things I never knew existed. I did not write any of these with the intent to share them but when I woke up today, I felt the weight of his absence and I did not want to ignore it.

It has officially been a year. I still can’t look down the street. I always remember to appreciate that Saviour and I get to hug every night. I pray, in my own way, all the time for his family - especially his mother and his son. I pray Zayden is still able to feel his father’s love and know how much he was loved.

Isaiah deserved so much better. Zayden deserved so much better.

And I am just a small piece of the large community of people who will never forget losing Isaiah.

[jasminesuntrell]

3/30

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2/30

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1/30

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Back for my once a year posting spree...

Follow me for 30 days of living in my feelings for National Poetry Writing Month!

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(The follow up to this poem.)

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No longer accepting donations?

Tumblr removed the tipping feature. I appreciate you, anonymous. There's always this or other methods found on my Linktree if you really want to, though. 🖤

[jasminesuntrell]

You Got Me Fucked Up

It's been about a month of non-stop cravings for you. Been starving for the toxic highs released from you. You cross my mind and my insides start looking for you. Gripping at nothing, muscle memory, or is it the ghost of you? Haven't been able to cast the replacement of you. Scared of disappointment leading me to stronger thirst for you. Uncharacteristically, I made my desires transparent for you. Never disassociated, only fully engaged intimacy with you. Still, it's been about a month since I last trembled beneath you. Punishment you inflict because I can smell the manipulation in you. Because being the favorite isn't enough for you. Because it's only my body that hungers for you.

But I refuse to be a link in the chain for you. And I'll yearn forever before I beg for you.

[jasminesuntrell]

Cirque de la Douleur (30/30)

I was born into a circus full of chaos and horrors and freaks and sideshows and dangerous stunts and creepy men left to run amuck. So it's no wonder I've always been somewhat of a clown. A sad one at first, with a smile painted on top my perpetual pout. And it's no wonder I grew to be the clown bouncing around while spinning plates. Keeping busy, keeping balanced but really it's a distraction. A way to ignore my deep rooted sadness. But, now, I'm trying to use my talents to my advantage. Keep them focused on my antics and escape this perpetual nightmare. Leave the clown shit in the tent and find joy in learning a new act.

[jasminesuntrell]

Misremembered or Forgotten (29/30)

I used to have an unreal memory. An almost disturbing ability to recall just about anything. But depression and trauma and SSRIs did a number on me and, now, I forget what I'm saying while speaking.

I read some poetry from my twenties, tonight. They were full of stories and people I have long forgotten. Some, I couldn't even conjure up with my own words as the prompt. People and experiences it seems once meant a great deal to me are now faceless strangers I saw in passing.

But the part about this that stung was not the memories I lost or the superhuman ability that's gone. It's the part where I misremembered me. I was hopeful and youthful, in spite of my pain and not the life-long malcontent I've always claimed.

And for as much as I questioned if I'd ever been in love before 2022, I see from my poems, I loved deeply. I just do it, now, from full capacity. I do it, now, passionately.

[jasminesuntrell]

Un-infatuated (28/30)

The embodiment of what you thought you desire stands before you. She gifts you a heart eager to love you in all the ways you crave. You realize not all dreams are meant to come true and leave.

[jasminesuntrell]

I Get it, Taylor (27/30)

Time is not the ultimate measure of intensity and sometimes it goes that a two-month on/off situationship might be more intense than the "safe" relationship you stayed in for 4 years. Failed attempts at practicality rarely inspire an abundance of words. Most often, they are the thing done in reaction to the thing we can't stop writing about.

I get it, Taylor. I, too, have had forevers that lasted just a fortnight. I've had them in one night. I've written odes to undergrown men who truly didn't deserve. Some of them, I vaguely remember. But it makes no difference. Whatever words I typed or scribbled, in those moments, I meant them.

That's why I don't judge Taylor Swift for always having songs about men and leaning in to melodramatics. Not when I know the hell of dealing with men. Might as well get some art from the shit. And that is why I'm going to keep on penning poems about niggas, indiscriminately.

[jasminesuntrell]

Focus, Baby (26/30)

The theme of previous two years was Boundaries. Understanding what mine are and navigating how to assert them.

The theme of this year is Standing on ALL Business. Which means honoring my boundaries and committing myself to betterment.

My feet tired though.

It's hard as hell to stay upright when it feels like the pressure from curating my own tiny universe is like standing in Louisiana heat draped in a wool trench bedazzled with bricks.

But I know I have to. So, I keep on standing. I stomp around when my knees start to shake. When the blisters start to ache, I dance in place. I create whatever motions are necessary to maintain my positions.

Even now, when my whole being hurts, I have to remember the mission. Boundaries and betterment. Stand on all your business.

[jasminesuntrell]

Maybe Portugal?

I try not to but I dream anyway. Of a place where I can raise my daughter without constant fear of her being killed for her skin, her presence. Of a place where houselessness is a choice and not a circumstance. Of a place where I am not constantly forced to prioritize a paycheck over health.

I dream, against my will, of escaping the United States of Hell.

If I don't die from terroristic acts of oppression it will be from suffocating under its weight, trying to ignore it to no avail.

I dream of less anxious conditions. Of a place I've never been. Of a place that may not exist. Of a place that has to be, HAS TO BE better than this.

I just have to find it.

[jasminesuntrell]

Imaginary (Non)Boyfriend (24/30 - Late)

I missed you last night for the first time since I accepted that I cannot hold space for you to drift in and out of my life.

I missed you earlier today too. Until I realized what I miss is the home I was building in you. A safe place that never came to fruition.

I was missing the figments of my overzealous imagination. I was missing all the vulnerability and trust I shared with you in earnest, thinking that you saw me.

I was not missing the real you. The manipulative and sometimes cruel you. The flippant 33-year-old adolescent who weaponized my bared soul against me, you.

I missed what I thought we could be. But we couldn't because you wouldn't and that's really all that matters. One-sided relationships are not meant to persist.

[jasminesuntrell]

American Realism (23/30 - Late)

My body needs rest. More rest than I've got "leave" left. Capitalism.