My First Poem

I wake up in a bed of frozen peas, the muslin sheet wet, sticky, twisted in my toes

Sobs rack the walls, I stretch my ribs and tell them hush

The boy under my bed shows his teeth, whiter than white, hundreds of them, I grin back

My parents are at the breakfast table. In the time it takes me to get to them they have aged fifty

years

Their hair falls into my palms, their skin rippling with countless flaking folds as they turn away

The dog treads over: “You witch. You horrid, stinking man,” he spits, lipless

I stare openly at the library receptionist. She looks like the contorted red woman from my

dreams

All I needed was hormones to be a big boy

I look down at the sidewalk’s gum- and shit-stained gutters. “Are you angrier than me?”

A cube of whale fat and then off to bed

Filled with dread, my knees facing the wrong way, my utter exultation.

Madeline Kutler is a junior Psychology and French major at the University of Southern California. She is quite new to the world of poetry, but loves to paint and draw. She hopes to build community and unity through her creative endeavors to let her peers know that they are not alone in this strange life.