1
Hidden under pink sheets, a silver blade
pools into my hand, and I watch you
pour grain into a sieve slowly, your braid
falls, and I have never thought something so true
as to what rice in cold water means. Glowing
white pumpkin seeds swallow nighttime, eating light
they swarm to your head, growing in your hair, singing
as the moths lovingly chew. You lovingly knight
me a crown, the ambient light shines warm
in my ears, and I begin to feel them holding
my face, they surgically sliver tendons to deform
my head from its body. It is saintly, lifting
through steam rising in the kitchen. Thank you
I mutter, swimming into a cloud of dew.
2
I mutter. Swimming into a cloud of dew
left by the night before, pans sit unwashed
in the silver sink, buttercream is slew
across my mother’s KitchenAid, shit—
I am waiting for the hurried pounding
through oak doors, I have slept for far too long
in my own skin, I am layered. You are lusting
for something cleaner. Wash me on HOT, STRONG,
and I will spin, detox, bleach me in two
and I will be ivory threadbare, eat
Tide Pods to clean your liver, orange and blue
in your pink smooth intestine. I breathe sleet
mixed with nicotine and think of you,
I am kitchen steam tunneling through.
3
I’m a kitchen. Steam tunneling through
my iron vents, exhaust pumps between
the folds of my skin, grease puddles, view
me under a code law. Sink your teeth into protein
by all means, eat my walk-in freezer, find
my rats and roaches, make them scuttle
in deep drywall, die in the walls, drive them lined
with new, pure, insulation. Leave, be subtle,
but not too much to where no one
notices. Clock out and go home with dirt
under your fingernails, like silt, stay done,
stay with the grease in your palms. Inert
filth, pig blood never leaves a stain, at least
they told me that, and I’ve never felt so leased.
4
They told me that. And I’ve never felt as leased
before. Your rental had oak cabinets,
beige Michigan carpet, white trim, gone yellow, pieced
together boards warp from waterbeds. Laminate
smell lingers, glued adhesive corrodes your nose—
bleeds onto Kleenex—and I think it’s chronic
how my body can’t leave, I need to dispose
of this magnet in my stomach, it’s embryonic
and it will calcify in my body
I will be a mother of hope, one whose
own body is a coward. I’m perpetually
your image, I will not fade yellow, or lose
my color, I am yours until a new
Polaroid is taken, until, I renew.
5
A Polaroid is taken. Until, I renew
my license, flash photography blinks
and I am blind at the DMV. It is true
what they say about having too many drinks,
my cheeks are flush, blood vessels crack like roads
swimming down my face. I am a river stone
worn and worn, then I am bones, it erodes
until it finds my core. Although I am grown
since the last baby blue photo of me
all I feel is exhaustion, my marrow
occupies my mind. It will melt, I foresee
myself holding the liquid, it slips, narrow
gaps between my fingers collapse, I’ll see
myself sink to the floor, I am not made of me.
6
I sink to the floor, I am not made of me
anymore. Every seven years your cells
regenerate, and I live in my second body—
In five years I will occupy a new hotel
without ever signing a lease. What else
is there to become in seven years?
I wish I could collect my old shells
and hang them to dry, they were pioneers
and war heroes, I would pin their skin
with badges of honor and bravery
that should’ve been there, now I can begin
to prep my body, that I will savor
with its medals and souvenirs, I can start
now, I will be bedazzled until the next seven years.
by Maddie Malone (age 14)
—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
Why do you like to write poetry?
Maddie Malone: “I think that my love for poetry can only be described as my love for flow. The feeling of flow is the concentration so strong that everything dissolves around you, to where your world is only you and the poem. It isn’t the words themselves that make me love writing poetry, but the state I am in as I write.”
