Wiregrass Writing Project, in partnership with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, is pleased to present Maya Young with the Silver Key for Poetry in the 2021 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Her poem is entitled "Girl", and she was nominated by Mrs. Roig-McKnight.
“Girl”
I plummeted
I am a girl who thrives on routine
I detest expanses of space that seem to stretch
To eternity:
new journals
open calendars
the slow roll of endless road
Because they imply a certain need
to sit with oneself,
they are terrifying.
A more intimate vulnerability emerges
in the private communion with self,
to invite the accumulation of thoughts and ideas
that hurt
and shame
and indict
And so, I sat with myself in April
and in May,
in between pounding out essays
and penciling equations
with a dignified precision
to avoid the former.
Any singular grit within me was steadily siphoned away
with each X feebly crossed in a calendar box.
June and July
were marked by the routine collection of sorrows
to place carefully within the folds of my heart
where they would sit reverently
I built a tiny chapel in my soul for them to rest,
though they still sting around their edges
to hide the soft hurt in their center
I vow to feed these inhabitants with something
resembling
joy