First Born Son, by Jasminne Mendez

Jasminne Mendez is an award-winning author whose work has been
published both nationally and internationally. Her first memoir, Island
of Dreams, was awarded Best Young Adult Latino Focused Book by the
International Latino Book Awards in 2015. She is an MFA Creative Writing
candidate at PLU’s Rainier Writing Workshop.

About the poem:

This poem came from a writing workshop I took with Willie Perdomo at the Voices
of Our Nation (VONA/Voices) writing workshop where we were asked to write a
“hard poem.” Writing about my brother is hard because although he introduced
me to poetry and theatre, our relationship has dissolved over the years, and in this
piece I mourn the loss of who he was and the things we once shared.