Mandy Seiner

At Absolute Peace With Myself For The First Time Ever, Sitting On The Curb Next To The Highway In Mifflinvile, Pennsylvania While Eating A Spicy Italian Subway Hoagie On Easter Sunday 

I asked the sandwich artist if I could skip the tomato and onion 
and she said “honey, you’re free to leave anything you don’t like” 

I’m glad I can only afford the bus home because I never give myself time 
to sit and do nothing and I’ve never been to Mifflinvile before,
but maybe it’s the center of the universe or at least a place
where I could learn something of utter importance 

I think I’ve decided to decide what I want for myself, and today
that includes not speaking to anyone who isn’t selling me something 
and taking luxuriously too long to pick a bottle of seltzer
from the cooler in Love’s while a country song
about hating your wife plays overhead 

maybe I don’t love my life but I don’t want to be greedy,
my childhood home had central air conditioning
and that made me a spoiled brat 

but there are so many highway rest stops I haven’t been to yet and
so many Subway sandwiches uneaten and an infinity of Chevy crossovers
to watch whiz by while the grass stains my ass and I think about how it feels 
when middle aged women with unbrushed hair call me baby 

I’m Sorry, but I Have to Go Somewhere That Isn’t Here 

Getting too comfortable is like shearing a sheep 
only to have the wool grow back instantaneously. 

It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s just that
I think there are other people I could love more. 

Given enough time, anyone could break your heart. 
That’s a good enough reason to never sleep with anybody. 

It’s impossible for every good thing to happen 
in the same place. So I need to keep moving. 

I drink too much coffee because I need a personality 
trait that I can use to relate to people everywhere. 

When I get lonely I read Wikipedia pages.
That’s the only reason I know who George Howell is. 

I own a car now, but only because I need 
my own private room where I can scream. 

Most accidents happen on familiar roads. Muscle memory. 
I’ve been driving dangerously for so long. 

Everything I do is an exercise in being insufferable. 
When I open my mouth, shrapnel falls out.