perhappened mag
issue 8: LOVERS
why is talking about
kissing more intimate
than kissing itself?
MANDY SEINER
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.
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.