To Monrovia
Molly Carson
To the swingsets hanging by a thread, the gnats that gnaw on the rotting fly carcasses
piling in the gravel, washed away by the rain.
To the half-cut grass, fence half done,
the mutt squeezing under the splinters, prancing beside boiling asphalt.
To years-old mud-stains indented by
the kinked-up rusted-green garden hose,
patterning under the no-helmet knee-scraper.
To a spectrum of sunsets through a fraying screen watching
the low-humming drones flying home from the base down the road,
dragging over shrinking cornfields.
To water balloon waste
and bunnies in hiding.
To six feet of white every six years.
To trees long dead
and homemade crop circles.
To the whiff of Mom and Dad’s beer.
To coughing up smoke too early, too late, gripping lopsided lawn chairs painted orange
planting laugh lines on our fingers.
Molly Carson (they/he) is a sophomore majoring in Writing for Film, Television, and Emerging Media, with minors in Media Literacy, Psychology, and Religious Studies. Their work combines lyrical language with sensory imagery, often exploring memory and the subtleties of everyday experience. He is particularly interested in how environments shape perspective and in quiet tensions that emerge within familiar spaces. Outside of the classroom, Molly is active in the Disabled Students Alliance, writes for After Hours on ICTV, and participates in campus theatre. Across genres, they aim to create work that invites close attention to the overlooked in the familiar.