molly-jenkins
Ecology graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill. I deeply value all things ecology and nature-related. I have a heart for music, and more than any long-form work, poetry. I steal moments, fragments of conversation or body language, window displays, and stitch them together to form a patchwork quilt narrative. I love telling stories this way, and in using this method as a means to better understand my own ideas and interactions with the world. / / I'm married to an incredible man. He is my rock, he is my brilliant lighthouse, and for all his earthy realism he has given me a love that is all at once reliable, passionate, earnest, and dynamic. / / Thanks for checking in, and don't be shy about leaving feedback or leveling a challenge!
how alike
are oak leaves trembling in a soft wind
and sea foam gliding up
a million grains of sand-glass
as if all of nature is sighing into my neck, saying
“hush”
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 5:41 PM UTC
the chorus and
the columns far
upholding tactful, dreamy stars
and what can we say, to dream what they are?
turning in trembling multitudes.
but the common cry
is a fallow blow
falls empty to that silver'd glow
and nobody could ever know
if the lights hear at all, or are uncaring
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 5:29 PM UTC
The rattled leaves,
musk of crushed moss,
lichen and mushroom-cap
sky be a banner
ancient and knowing
blue like desert, like
shimmering oasis-eyes
in the desert
bearing into me
blue like diving into the sky
across a wall of wind
into water
into new lands of Spring
and a new skin.
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 3:34 PM UTC
My skies are sponged in soft grey
water-pressed, water folded
water borne.
Anon, I have only ever been remembered in this way:
When the light is wan.
But I promise you, more than
the sky now promises a hopeful sleep
I will love you beyond hills and houses
Beyond clay, which melts in the rain
My love is a kiln, I am caught in the
hearth with you
And now if I was thrown,
I would be shattered instantly.
But I can stand a thousand days of rain
I can hold under high heat
I am glossy earthenware
Finer than any diamond or gold nugget
I will nourish, comfort, and warm you
I will love you such.
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
the folds, the tether-lines gathering
securing linens whipped and filled
by a wide wind
it sweeps my memory in white
noise, throwing the sheets, the chronologies
of a life into air
and I am left wanting.
running my hands into the folds,
the pleats of cool pressed cotton
running my hands down the pleats
again, just to feel them
the reassurance that they are still there,
for my fingers to glide over
in a given moment of luxurious ennui.
the pleats are snatched up in
thoughts nimble, quick, and grasping
again, just to feel them
a habit to drape
to clip against a line
(to blow in the wind)
in the folds.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 2:15 AM UTC
my chest is as smoke, the atoms
are too far apart
from
each
other, and otherwise
like a half-knit-yarn-scarf
fingers dug in and pulled, and
pulled
until the knots all
hung loose
rattling, rattling
there was a nothing there
and i was nothing for
more than a moment.
her voice on the line
was the fog that seeped
around my mind
still seeps up from
the grating now
I am flat, crumbling
stone
loosely in the ground now
pelted by rain and cold
I am cold fever chill
I am the hollow, drifting
gutteral and weakened howl
of the wind, whipping
now languidly, now violently at
my father's tombstone.
His name is carved out
the open grating between my shoulders
he left this world, woken
in the dead of night
in the pain of death
fading to confusion
to the loss of voluntary
and involuntary function
he raised his arms
opened his mouth soundlessly
and wept wide-eyed
into the frozen-form.
the scene of my absence
is the broken record
the image that haunts
I can picture vividly
the sofa he laid on, the burgundy carpet
the bad-body smells
of death, and incontenance
the flashing lights
of a too-late ambulance
the echoes and shadows and smells
clung to and possessed the walls, the floor
for months after
the echo of his open mouth
and open eyes, animal
it is a home again now, I think
but
I am a shade of
his fear, his reduction, his
soundlessness.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
A discordant gain
moves through the hall
echoes off every wall
and reverberates again
through my chest cavity.
my ribcage thrums
obstinate, hopeful
it is a clear fullness
it is the water that I carry.
The cistern is broken
but
it has been sealed in gold
that reflects the light of
things that have been, are, or will be
and it is the lightning fracture
that appeals to Him now
more than the gold itself.
I know your
heavy lead-heart, lead-limbed
sorrow.
I know the iron nails
your mind would drive
up into your own veins.
You crucify yourself not every three days
but every day
every night
every hour.
It is the lightning-fracture
that reminds you of this place
moreso than the gold ever could.
The high, dissonant clattering
in the world
drives into your dryness.
I will give you water
but to hold it, you must seal
your cracks, yourself.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 12:28 PM UTC
smoke-sheet eyes, you
questioned me behind
a mesh divider
all my hot hard "no"s
all my parting throes -
terrifying, endless, and gaping.
you questioned,
and never answered
you opened me like
an underripe fig
I didn't understand
how a person
could pull me apart
too soon.
Now I mould
over, I bruise
and hug the wet,
black ground.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
is the way
you look at
me
only a function of the way
you hold your hands
there, in your lap
closed, slumping
closed?
if I closed mine
would yours suddenly open
uncurling
would they grasp and
catch
at the air, open?
mine is not the heart
of a flickering butterfly
or a candle in a howling wind
a fragile thing
and while it is tempestuous
arhythmic
it is not fragile
the heart is a muscle
it pumps
it is not a glass ornament
for you to peer at
on hours, afraid of shattering
it, it is to be fed
with iron
with density
blood and touch
-and it cannot be
blocked up.
it will fail.
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 1:25 AM UTC
in the curve
of the ox-bow
the tepid currents
a second sky
winds its way
on this earth.
it is false.
my mirror, my mirror
when I approach
your light grows dim
and murky with clouds
of sand.
From a distance I thought -
you were a bright glassy hope
but
you strand little things
fill in houses
before drying up
in the heat of the sun.
Yours is not first light
nor resilience
I am glad
to have walked along the shoreline
and in the full tempestuous surf
I am glad
I am big enough
not to be caught like
your little fish
narcissitic,
desperate to find my own reflection
in you.
in the curve
of the ox-bow
of the currents
i return to the child-self
to wading for the sake
of wading
to feel the coolness of the water's ebb
and not
to waste love, wanting.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 7:40 PM UTC