my hands always smell like shallots and clementines and I’m infatuated with everyone who holds me anyway. in the right light, I could fall in love with anybody. it’s not my fault, it’s just that everyone’s eyelashes are so beautiful. everyone’s apartments are so charming. I once adored a girl who organized her spice rack by color: how do you come back from that gradient? how can you see where someone sleeps and not gain a new tenderness? I used to keep a sketchbook full of every place I had ever slept that was not my own bed. couldn’t get the depictions right. a drawing can’t tell you what their shampoo smells like, how the traffic sounds on Baywood Avenue in Mt. Lebanon, PA. I buy a plant every time a new person spends the night. in this apartment, I’m up to an asparagus fern, a heart philodendron, a snake plant, and a string of pearls. I water them every morning. I’m courting a garden.
Mandy Seiner (she/they) is a writer and educator from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the ketchup capital of the world. They earned their BFA in Poetry at Emerson College and currently work for the NYC Department of Education. They are the co-editor of DEAR Poetry Journal. Find them on Twitter @still__mandy.