Jolan Kopp
Bio
Instagram: @yelyahnaloj (https://www.instagram.com/yelyahnaloj/)
Stories (11/0)
What I Listen to On Repeat...
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I sang along to this song alone in my tent, which sat in the backyard of my dad's then-girlfriend. I had been obsessing over my friend for a year, it started to feel like my identity. There wasn't a passing day where I didn't think about contacting him, but it changed from the innocent want of hanging out on the swings or holding hands to fantasies of getting one of the guns out of his uncle's closet and ending myself while he watches. I felt like I had nothing. The college I wanted to go to felt so far away and the friends I clung onto since middle school had lives of their own since my family moved. I thought moving closer and staying at my estranged biological dad's would bring me closer. Instead, I opened up the past and realized that I didn't have the same bond with my father as I had when I last saw him, 5 years earlier. Instead- with no transportation, no money, no skills- I felt stuck and far away from my mother. Instead, I was realizing that if my mom hadn't married my toxic step-dad, my sibling wouldn't have been in an abusive situation and my family wouldn't feel torn apart when I left and convinced my dad to take in my teenage sibling. Instead, despite living the previous summer in tents after my mom couldn't afford rent, nearly a year later I missed the freedom of staying outside.
By Jolan Kopp12 months ago in Beat
The Low Income Apartment
If walls could talk, I would still not spill my secrets. I would protect the people who's stories are theirs to tell. I would keep my seams sealed if a person were to contemplate every grimy smudge and textured popcorn shadow following the rise of the sun, as if that were their own purpose of life.
By Jolan Koppabout a year ago in Confessions
Keeping It Cool In the High Desert
As a homesteader on my family's offgrid farm, there where a lot of little moments that made up summer. Like when Mom came back with a couple of those “king cone” ice creams, after getting propane at the convenience store, for my sibling, M, and I. Delightful surprise. We ate that while watching another episode of Sweet Tooth on M's iPad. Or finding out the Junior mints melted in the box in the cupboard. Or drinking iced apple cider, after I hammered in ice into the mouth of the bottle with the handle of the kitchen knife.
By Jolan Kopp2 years ago in Families
Alex Clare-Whispering
I pick through places for my bare feet to land, avoiding the pricks of autumn debris. I feel the rough pavement against my soles. The neighbors ask What happened to your shoes? I tell them I'm fine. This sensory input feeds my starved nerves; I feel as if a blindfold was lifted off my face. I'm more grounded to my surroundings.
By Jolan Kopp2 years ago in Beat
A Case of Hypochondria?
Graph, hand-drawn. Color coded. Number of symptoms on the x-axis, percentage on the y-axis. Genetic possibilities highlighted. Systematic. With bravery, I handed it over to the school counselor. I flipped through ruled paper and matter-of-factually gave my recommended diagnoses. I worked all summer on this.
By Jolan Kopp4 years ago in Education
