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Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
"Where do you see yourself in ten years?"

That question took me off my very well reinforced guard.
My palms start feeling a little bit sweaty.
I hope they don't notice me starting to breathe faster.

Ten years?
I see myself being totally alone,
Maybe even dead, honestly.
I have that faulty heart.
I think it's getting worse...

Ten years?
I can't see myself past tomorrow,
Worthless as I am.
Ten years is incomprehensible to me.
Literally, I can't comprehend it!

"In ten years, I hope to have made myself a better man. To be someone admired and respected, with a deeper understanding of morals and values."

I lied through my teeth...
I'm such a wreck.
Written 28 March 2016
Jack Jenkins Mar 2017
I am very unwell
My body wretches
Heart palpitates &
I am very unwell
A sickly soul within
Darkness got a hold
Won't let me go &
I am very unwell
My skin creeps
My bones creak
My voice croaks &
I am very unwell
Feels like I'm dying everyday anymore.
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
Claws,
Sickly fingernails,
Pull the skin,
Off my pale face.

Darkness, you were once my friend,
My ally,
My protection from people, like a cloak,
But now...

Why did you betray me?
My trust in you was more than,
10,000 fathoms deep.
Why did you betray me?

Shadows lust for my fear,
You play your game against me,
I have no defense,
You've invaded my mind.

Why did you betray me?
I loved you, darkness...
Written 21 March 2016
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
Excuse me pretty lady,
I hope you won't mind,
You seem like my type,
And you're quite pretty.

I think I'll flirt with you,
Dance around what I feel,
See how you will react,
To my witty maneuvering.

Wrap my arm around your neck,
Rest a hand on your thigh,
I won't go too far, I promise;
But you're someone I want to know.
Written 11 March 2016... meant to be humorous, so don't take it seriously.
Jack Jenkins May 2020
I think its time to have a talk,
A walk over the rubble of once tall walls,
That held a heart so heartless captive,
Lost in halls of raw cobbled things,
That were never really feelings, just things,

Things I need to say, to go over,
All in the name of bless-ed closure,
So sorry that I drove her so far away,
These bereft words, scribbled on a digital page,

Will never convey the dismay of this shipwrecked man,
Who crafted an island by his own hands,
Where he made himself ******,
Where he made his last stand,

But no ending ever came,
Just waves upon waves,
Of drowned dreams and half dead sorrows,
Awaiting death on every tomorrow,
Death that never came,
//self reflection//

Three years is a long time. I think I'm ready to talk to her again.
Jack Jenkins Jul 2017
To trust
to believe
that which
isn't
      there
When the storm closes
its eye around
             you
There is no way out
but trust
   to a hope
that it's not
the end
just a road you take
to get to
         the peace
you desperately hope
              and believe in
Jack Jenkins Jul 2019
There's a noose around my guts
A lump in my throat
  & a feeling that I can't win
A staredown with Death
  & for once I have the upper hand
My soul runs faster than I can see
  & fear doesn't meet me here
What is this place?
  & why was I brought here?
What is this victory?
  & why is it mine?
If this is only a scent
I want to taste it full
//On peace and letting it go//
Jack Jenkins Jul 2022
there is less of me that
i hold closely
and more of what
i want to be
that i hold closely
because who i am
is not a friend
but i will still love him
and hope to see him grow
self-love is also
self-destruction
but i plant
different seeds this time
Jack Jenkins Nov 2017
I'm taking awkward clumsy steps
through life
with weary legs carrying me
up broken trails

I'm running from myself
can't face it
I've had a dozen "eureka" moments
but my life doesn't change

I'm the only one who can change me
that's why I stay the same
plodding through life half broken
with shards of a heart left broken

Probably just out of focus
with too much I
but I'm not changing
is it my destiny to *fail?
Clumsy me can't change me. Half broken, I fail.

"... Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Jack Jenkins Apr 2017
A country that the world left behind
when rubber could be made by man.
The country that slaves found home.

I love this country
that I haven't set
foot on it's soil
yet.

I want to walk it's
dusty trails into
rainforests and
hidden tribes.

I want to sing with
all the vagabonds
ragamuffins &
castaways.

It's a country unknown
a frontier to discover.
A place to call home
maybe...
Jack Jenkins Oct 2016
The gift of life
  The curse of life
   The bitterness
    The jealousy
     The heartbreak
The pain of love
  The thrill of love
   Pursuing the impossible
    A conquered heart
     What cuts us to our core...

The greatest gift of life is our loneliness, our pain.
The things that make us vulnerable to love from one another.
To have a shattered heart be held by a friend, as you confess to being violated.

Cut my heart in two with this hope.
Shiver my spine with this fear;
That I will suffer loneliness all my days,
That not a single day will I ever be alone.
Set me off on the river in my casket,
When I am gone with the flowers passing.
I'm waiting for the fall, for the gift of life...

I tell you again: the greatest gift of life is our loneliness, our pain. The things that make us vulnerable to love from one another.
A bit more abstract than I intended it to be... hope everyone likes it.
Jack Jenkins Mar 2017
It's hard to keep going everyday without you...
I miss you, y'know? I miss you...

I miss your smiling eyes that belied your emotionless face
I miss all our long conversations into the deep night
Whether they were absolutely meaningless or serious
Just to lay with you long after I should have been asleep...
Yeah, I miss you...

I miss kissing your forehead everytime we had to say goodbye
I miss the anticipation of seeing you after we'd been away
I miss all of your poetry you carved into my spirit
Barfight
On How to Love a God
If You Talk Enough Sense You'll Lose Your Mind
Nadya and Fatima (Such a great one)
Sun Kissed
Woman Lay With  Wolves...

I bet you didn't think I'd know your poems like that...
But you overcame my stubborn heart & I carved you into me
Molded and sewed every stitch of you to me
& I miss how you stole my heart away...
& I miss how I fell in love with your mind long before I fell in love with your body. (What a body it is, too)

I don't know if you'll ever see this letter to you
Part of me doesn't want you to because you'll know
Just how many tears I've shed missing you
& how bitter I am that you were ripped away from me

I miss you, y'know? I miss you...
& even though you're gone away
You left your sparkle in my eyes...
****...
Jack Jenkins Sep 2019
Art should be disturbing to the comfortable
A comfort to the disturbed
A shape of two being one
The creator casting one half
The eye of the beholder creates the other
Unified into a single shape with infinite dimensions
Shining like a diamond
The shape of as heart
Windowed soul
Unshuttered and unfettered
A pouring of everything
Filling of empty spaces
The gap between the ribcages
The pain behind the faces
Unmasked, raw, refined, precise, agonizing
Hopeful and despairing
That is what art should be
Art is nothing more than that
Create beauty
//On art//
Jack Jenkins Jul 2022
its a point of forming
drops of water
carving
a channel
to this place i am
where i can see
beauty
in this broken shell
in the cracked
reflections
absent of color
and following
that water-cut channel
to the light above
well it may be past
my strength
but
maybe not
Jack Jenkins Jul 19
i dont remember when the rules were written
only that they were written in my bones
etched there like commandments from a god i invented
to keep myself small enough
to fit inside the punishment
i have knelt to every cruelty
some with names i whispered like secrets
some with no names at all
just the echo of my voice
sharpened into command
i dont know how to stop
only how to split
to fracture like glass under holy pressure
to be the mouth that orders and the back that bends
to be the hand raised and the cheek turned
the lash and the mark it leaves
the yes and the why
the silence and the scream
i have been both judge and defendant
executioner and confessor
and still the verdict is always
not enough
never enough
never
i have worn shame and it mixes with my skin
called it modesty
called it devotion
called it what love must look like when it hurts just right
but God doesnt ask for blood the way i do
and i know that
i know it
and still i lay my faith beside my hunger
twisting like lovers caught in a mirror
my mouth half-prayer
half-demand
my hands clasped and trembling
with the weight of worship and war
i have made myself god because no one else would
and hated myself for daring
that is the sin i cannot name
but feel
like fire
just under the surface of my skin
I once saw Lucifer in a dream
he stood still
beautiful in the way ruins are beautiful
a monument to what couldn't be forgiven

At the time I thought I was witnessing something outside of myself
A presence to fear
to resist
But now
as the mirrors sharpen
and hindsight speaks in softer tongues
I see the truth in his face

It was me

I've known how to fall
and call it flight
I've known how to bear light
even when it burned

This poem is a reckoning
with the self that punished
and the self that bore it.
Jack Jenkins Jan 2020
Oh I am calloused and bruised
I am weathered and used
I don't blend anymore
I just float on the surface

The light that left me
Has me feeling thin
Inside
Oh the love that left me
Has me feeling dead
Inside

And the love that stayed
Cannot carry me on
I am a wayward son
I am the only lonely one

Is there an end or a beginning
I can no longer tell
These thoughts aren't my own
But they're nobody else's

Oh everyone's a stranger
When you don't know yourself
Everyone's a stranger
I don't know myself
//On love and loneliness//
Jack Jenkins Jan 2017
Sings like a swallow
Hummingbird flutters deftly
Fierce as an eagle*
.....
.......
.....
Who can guess which bird this is? ;)
Jack Jenkins Jul 2016
The Man with the deformed hands
Happy as he could ever be
Everyone posing queries to him
How he could ever be so happy
They couldn't see he was happy to be
Unique and different to all others
A stamp of light everyday he lived
While loneliness carved his heart out
Pieces at a time
And nobody saw him losing his war
The Man with the deformed hands
Jack Jenkins Oct 2016
You never knew, Love;
You never knew did you?
The heart that waited and wanted
Fastened to you, hoping for his chance
That chance you never gave me, Love.
Why?

Your fragile heart collects the dust
After years of misuse and abuse
From all the ones who squandered you
While all the while I was there
Clawing at the door to your heart.
Why?

Do you know tonight, this night, Love?
Tonight, this night is the night love dies;
Oh the night that love finally died!
Because you were too scared to see
That my heart has always been yours.
Why?

**Because you
               Were always
                                  The One
This poem just focuses on the pain, not the anger. I could not express that kind of anger.
Jack Jenkins Jan 2017
You are the one I'm talking about,
   When my words aren't there anymore.
Where the memories are bound to my heart,
   You gave my heart reasons to live.

My dear friend, I am only a skeleton,
   Stripped to bones by life's winds.
If you could feel my emptiness, death,
   So long ago, I was alive with you.

The raindrops fall in this desert,
   How I fell for you.
Reminders, remains, tell me all your secrets,
   Where is your heart, love?

The force behind my words, the reasons I write,
   Every letter a drop of our blood.
Sand falls out my mouth, you move on,
   *But did you know you were the one?
I have no heart left anymore. Just a bruised piece of flesh...        https://youtu.be/QUfs1R864Xk
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
Abysmal agony
Love stirred to the surface
Hoping for a chance
Written 2 March 2016
Jack Jenkins Jan 2017
People say that I'm a good poet, that the poetry I write is beautiful... Really the best poems are never read because I never write them.
Sometimes you can see a glimpse of them in the way I kiss.
Sometimes you can see a glimpse of them in the way I cry.
But they're never going to be put onto paper with a pen.
My love and my pain are truly too great for words.
Jack Jenkins May 2016
Amid a maelstrom of emotions,
  My heart is doomed and languid.
A broken love, tattered devotions,
  Falling hopes and rising anguish.

Carelessly wounded, my heart crawls,
  Foolishly forsaken my glorious Lord.
Surrounded by my collapsed sand walls,
  The loss was a cost I can't ever afford.
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
No, there's no anger
No, there's no happiness
No, there's no smiles
No, there's no frowns
No, there's no turbulence
No, there's no gentleness
No, there's no hope
No, there's no despair
No, there's no numbness
Yes, there is pain
Written 17 February 2016... now there's a Yes to all those statements...
Jack Jenkins Dec 2023
why do i identify with addiction and addicts when my only addiction is to sadness
an unwritten paper attracted to matches like iron to a magnet there is comfort in madness but comfort i cant manage
so i rip a page from the good book and ingest it hoping to live out gods commandments like doing good for the sake of good while i burn the world behind me
the straight and narrow is an uphill climb so i check my elevation only to find rock bottom has a basement
god is with the lowly and contrite so i guess self abuse is my form of abasement
but i can never hurt myself enough so i hurt the ones i love so i can gain pain by the process of osmosis
'cept god works his law in measure for measure so this living hell is just a double portion
wisdom chased me so i broke her legs because im scared love truly is the answer
Jack Jenkins Jul 2017
You could never fathom my heart,
You could never accept my love,
You could never trust me,
You could never love,

So you broke my heart,
Just a splinter at a time,
Everyday another crack,
Because you can't love,

Now I am a bitter man,
Cuz I can't forgive you,
I can never forget you,
& when you left, I died.
The stupid ******* cliche of love always winning in the end is a joke, kids.
Jack Jenkins Mar 2020
The curtain closes after the bow
Creaking leather shoes start their step
Exit stage left
Applause
Silence

tap tap tap tap

Time stands as still as his heart
and a question ****** his mind
if his words were empty
or just the audience?

He got into this business to hurt
to feel something
It was his drug, after all
But he finally healed
Years later
A smile touches his scars

tap tap tap tap

Exit stage left
'Til death, does he art
Thank you all for reading my works, over the years. I never really planned to stop writing poetry, especially because I feel I've been writing my best work ever. this has been not only my work, but my diary. There's so much of me on this site, so much more than most people would ever know...

I'm quitting simply because I feel it is complete, at least for now. I originally started writing because I was in love with someone who is no longer in my life, every time I refer to "her" in my notes... and I've made peace with it. I'm happy.

Thank you to everyone who changed my life, from here. I wish you all the best in life. Sorry for the burnt bridges, to those I no longer speak to.
Jack Jenkins Mar 2019
Rejection is a wound nobody is immune to
Its taste is sour and bitter
It makes your gums bleed

Rejection is always by your side
But never is a friend
But never is a lover

Rejection chases away sobriety
Looking to stop the pain
Looking to fill the void

Rejection pushes trust out of your life
Whispers that she's all you'll need
& makes you go deaf to the world
//On love//
Jack Jenkins Apr 2017
Sixty words per minute// no errors
Five hundred plus poems// written
Thousand firm handshakes// given
Countless prayers cried out// frantic
And if you ever saw me work// well
You'd be surprised
Keeping this one a mystery. ;)
Jack Jenkins Aug 2016
Everything is wrong and nothing is right.
Yes,
Everything is wrong.
No way to understand this madness,
Light has become dark and right is left.
Bemoaning, desolate, fractured is my soul;
My spirit.
Understanding and faith have fallen asleep on me,
For my heart is but flesh, crippled by broken glass,
Broken life. Who knows where I dwell?
Whispered hauntings tickle and tease my ears,
Phantoms, shades, spectres, dance before my collapsed eyes... nobody sees, nobody hears, everyone understands but they aren't there.
Difficult times in life right now... easily the worst. Slowly collapsing into a pit...
Jack Jenkins Apr 2016
Heart of gold?
Heart of sin?
So much to hold,
Can't take it all in.
Turn around and let it go,
So many tears need to flow.
Cry it out,
Or throw some things,
Just don't decide,
To end everything.
Jack Jenkins Sep 2018
It cannot be described
only imbibed
through many sorrows
and sorries
until the pain
recedes to numbness
your compass
points to death
& you see the peace it brings
the silence
the darkness
you make your mind up
maybe not today
or tomorrow
but you know
you're going to die by your own hand
& you feel
just a brief
fleeting
happiness

...

that's the sound of suicide
//On anxiety, suicide, and darkness//
Not in a good headspace right now. Thank you for your concerns, I just needed to vent this.
Jack Jenkins May 2018
I framed the stars in the sky above,
For you,
Once upon a time,
In a time far, far away;

Every star was a poem shining for you,
Meant to fall on you,
Across moonlit shoulders,
Dedicated to your beautiful soul;

The wolves saw the light as well, they came,
Gnashed teeth severed,
I tasted bitterness & swallowed,
Jealousy & anger flashed in my skies;

The stars framed in the sky above,
For you,
Bled red with rage,
The poems stopped with my love;

I dwell in this created darkness,
A wasteland,
Too scared to create stars,
So sorry for everything I have done.
Jack Jenkins Aug 2022
and how are the flowers
that fail to blossom
still hanging in the
eaves of dawn
and still holding
sunlight in their petals
clutching tightly
and still leaking through
the ground is damp
but i can't feel a thing
.
Jack Jenkins Oct 2017
I long for the past, but in a blink it's lost

the moments that were, now, the moments that aren't

the here and now slips into yesterdays & yesteryears,

every delicate second no longer in my hands,

passes between my fingers to fall on my soul

yesterday was last year; last year was last decade

I'm old before my time, swallowed in the hourglass of life
Most people who are 22 spend their life looking to the future and what life has in store for them. But I feel like I've already seen and lived too much, so I dwell on the past.
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
The worst of the night
Is that creeping fatal doubt
That leeches onto my spirit
Reminding me I'm not good

The worst of the night
Is that familiar aching
Deep in my heart, no
The aching that is my heart

The worst of the night
Is recalling the whole day
And remembering what I
Should have done differently

The worst of the night
Is knowing tomorrow is coming
No matter what happens, it comes
And my demons wait for me
Written 19 February 2016
Jack Jenkins Aug 2016
The zeal of God's Love for our hearts and souls
    cannot be matched or conquered by human willpower;
It can only be rejected by our cursed nature.
Not exactly a poem, more of a meditation on our relationship with divinity.
Jack Jenkins Aug 2017
When the fires are all around me
Blazing my skin to ashes
I reach & nobody helps
For I am forlorn
Desolate...
Jack Jenkins Jan 2017
The bitter taste of losing you
   I'd rather lose everyone else
I miss you every day
   Think of you every day
Please come back to me
   Please come home
Yes, I love you...
Jack Jenkins Feb 2017
I fell for you as if I were a rock thrown from a cliff's edge,
You were elegant like the light that shimmers off the water,
Our souls met and you stole away the breath from my lungs,
Our eyes locked and you stole the heart right out of my chest.

With you gone now, tears fall down my cheeks every night,
I stare at the bottom of my coffee cup with blank thoughts of you,
The way your eyes would smile when your mouth wouldn't;
The little details of the brows over your steel-cut eyes.

My life was a dull blue with the charred remains of love overhanging,
But you lit up my heart with wild yellows and reds, and velvet purples,
I handed to you the thing I swore I'd never give again,
I handed to you the gates to me, beyond the walls.

Now I miss you, the fullness of our memories stinging;
To say that I loved you is a grandeur understatement,
Because I had visions of a lifetime with you by my side,
Yeah, you were the morning star in my life.

Yeah, you are my sparkle of gold.
33 days, now, but I took a bit of time to finish this poem.
Jack Jenkins Oct 2019
Anger, agony, and a
Crass chaos curtained by
Smiles
Belies a bruised being
An "I'm not really okay" stare
But I'm not really "all there" so who cares?
Echoes die at the end of the tunnel, no matter how loudly you scream "I love you"
The corpses in my mind of lovers who left reminds me that they just knew better
So why don't I?
This is my diary where I die every day
Distant, dark, brooding
Bitter over what I couldn't have
Like swallowing sand

sigh

this doesn't help any more
//on her, all of them, everything, and ultimately nothing//
Jack Jenkins Jun 2019
If you would just talk to me
I have words
but
I don't think they're worth speaking
Poetically muted, I'm on pause
Take a breath
Take a second
It's fine
I'm fine
Just a normal response
to my love
Is to become
Discarded
//On relationships//
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
I really don't understand love
I just know I love you.
So let's love, m'kay?
Written 17 January 2016
Jack Jenkins May 2018
One should try to glide through life as gently as a canoe;
If one needs to make a splash,
be sure to know where the ripples,
will go.
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
Once upon a time...

Seconds turn to minutes,
As we meet for the first time,
A gift from above, so divine.

Minutes turn to hours,
And it feels like an eternity,
An eternity I've known you.

Hours turn to days,
The zeal, the vitality,
Starts fading like snow.

Days turn to weeks,
I wonder if I should say hi,
Wonder if I should give up.

Weeks turn to months,
And the grave is being dug,
The bridge starts to burn.

Months turn to years,
And it's become too late,
All is lost, all is a stale grey.

Years turn to today,
Today I thought of you,
And I regret that we lost touch.

The End...
Written 20 March 2016
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
So now my past self has met my present self
The battlefield is my conscious
And the stakes are my entire future.
Written 29 January 2016... lost that fight
Jack Jenkins May 2017
I'm broken
beaten down
worn out
hollow
tired

all those other
synonyms for what
I have become

****

everything is just so wrong
all of my plans burnt down
along with too many bridges

I mean
I've lost everyone I can count on
in one way or another
So I wrap myself up in the hurt
because it's the only blanket I have
against the cruel world I live in

****

Why do I even bother writing anymore
there's only so many ways I can say
I'm a broken human being
Not broken in a good way
But broken in a way that makes me
non-functional

how many friends I lost
know I'm going to lose more
just because that's how life works
I stopped counting
after I lost my lover
then my best friend
stopped counting
after the fourth suicide
the missing

****

it's time to put the pen down
I can't write away all of my problems
there's no value in "I miss you"
no matter how eloquently I pen it
you're not here anymore

and I'm so ****** up
this poem don't even have a single
Person in mind when I'm writing it
I literally can't keep track of
how many different pains
I'm trying to address...

oh well...

*****
Life is like a box of grenades: doesn't matter how long you juggle them, they all will blow up in your face.
Jack Jenkins Dec 2016
Tick
Tock
Clip
Clop
Drip
Drop
Fall
Dead
Fall
Alone
Written 13 March 2016
Jack Jenkins Aug 2018
Poetry is always the epicenter of my expressions,
My soul's sole extension
The way I give subvention
To my tension
To give confession to my transgression
But my pen is now empty
The bottle tempts me
I pour my drink to fill
Only to find the emptiness of the glass
Matches the emptiness of the heart
The emptiness of the pen
My mind as blank as paper
My thoughts fleeting as vapor
All I can think is how I miss her
How I miss her voice that's been gone so long
How I miss the care she would give to me
How I regret that I would forget
Just how much she meant to me
& now I lament what should have prevented
Halving my heart and her heart
Never to be together because I blew it
I blew it
& I can't stop writing about you, my friend
but there are only so many words
They cannot transform this pain
They only perform for others to read
& that will not make me whole again...
So here's to the good years poetry has brought me
Here's to the good memories of you and I
I say goodbye to what once was
Because it just hurts to write
I only long to be numb
//On anxiety, life, love, and her//
Jack Jenkins Jun 2016
You're beautiful.*

I know you don't see or feel that a lot of the time
You feel like
Starving
Pill popping
***
Blades
Are the only way out of the pain
I can assure you it isn't
Because you're a beautiful person
For being able to endure what you've been through
Still finding friends to love and care for
Expressing yourself in the midst of the pain

Though memories may cause you to fall
You be sure to get up and keep going on
And if you ever need a helping hand
Or just a hug
Remember: *
You're still beautiful
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