3rd Place Winner of the poetry winner: This year I found out - Faith-Marie McHenry

I’m allergic to dairy and winter,
& New York City drains me like
no other place.

Yesterday, I’m buying menthols 
from a man who mistakes my faux
Van Cleef for the Turkish evil eye.

I ask for two Southern Comforts.
My half-siblings are all either
dead,  or dead to the family. Last
year, 

I discovered my father’s bong
in the one kitchen cabinet I’d
never before opened;

some weed and a dead roach
(insect) and a lifelong secret 
inside. The paperwork from 

my brother’s arrest, bottommost
of a stuffed, stuck drawer, and the
dusty pink teddy bear

the old neighbors gave me after
he died. To my best friend:  I’m
sorry your Hinge date and I 

fought on New Year’s Eve, and
I’m jealous you’re still together. I
wish that guy I thought was gay

but isn’t would’ve smelled the
inside of my wrist when he
asked my perfume—that

delicate veiny part, more heartbeat  than
skin. Put his nose to it. It’s been 
months since I’ve been touched.

The boy from November, he sends
poems from Amsterdam, gets
drunk and despises people. 

He hated me, too.  I’ve
been using the weather  as
a cover for agoraphobia,

writing, like Emily, alone. But 
today, I’m laughing with a friend  I
should’ve met in high school;

English teachers would’ve adored
us but we’d’ve still been separated
in class, doubled over with what 

only we find funny. And look at
what I have (worth saying)  for
the first time all year.