every week i get a call from Ohio asking if this is the Walgreens / i answer even though i know it isn’t for me / it’s good to know when it’s not for you / it’s not for me / it’s not you / it’s me / it’s not you, it’s all of this / discounted lotion & nail polish remover & tweezers & razors / you are what you love or whoever you don’t / hang up on / i’ll find you in the aisle where i think the least / about my body / i wish i could / be travel-sized for you
Melissa Lozada-Oliva, “One Digit Off,” published in Voicemail Poems (via bostonpoetryslam)
You can’t find intimacy—you can’t find home—when you’re always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.
A young man was arrested by Portsmouth, Virginia police over a mere $5 in groceries that he stole because he was hungry. The arrest came on the same day a Portsmouth cop shot and killed an unarmed African American 18-year-old. But now, Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, has been found dead in his jail cell, after spending four months behind bars with no conviction and no bail. Mitchell was said to have had ...
#JamychealMitchell
Youth Jailed Since April For Alleged $5 Grocery Theft, Found Dead In Jail Cell
A young man was arrested by Portsmouth, Virginia police over a mere $5 in groceries that he stole because he was hungry.
The arrest came on the same day a Portsmouth cop shot and killed an unarmed African American 18-year-old.
But now, Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, has been found dead in his jail cell, after spending four months behind bars with no conviction and no bail.
Mitchell had no muscle mass left by the time he died. As a registered nurse, she said she believes he was starving himself, apparently to pressure the “justice” system to stop locking him up indefinitely.
Mitchell was accused of stealing a $1 bottle of Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake. Combined, these amounted to a total of $5 he is accused of stealing from a 7-Eleven.
For that, he has been locked up for months, awaiting trail, and it is not even clear that he committed those crimes. There may have, perhaps, been a dispute about payment. Or perhaps he began consuming the food in the store and his credit or debit card was declined. Both of these scenarios could result in the same charges.
Perhaps still, he was poor, hungry, and stole food from time to time. Are we really in the business of locking people in cages for months over stealing food?
Mitchell’s death has not been covered by national, or even local media in Virginia, aside from a brief mention on the 11 o’clock news. Help us SPREAD THE WORD before the police start shaping the narrative of this young man’s death!
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