East End 

I don’t drunk call you so I must not

Love you. Tomorrow

I imagine myself smothered

By the duvet; by the hand that feeds.

All awakenings are rude.

Take back when you said

I only look pleased in bed;

Keep a place for me on the left side,

Keep the lights low.

The Tylenol is on the nightstand.

You dream of me coming

Up your front steps on Friday night;

The spare key moved,

The front door locked.

McCaela Prentice received honorable mention in Small Orange Journal’s 2019 Emerging Woman Poet Honor. She is currently a student at Saint Lawrence University in upstate New York, studying Biology/Public Health and minoring in creative writing. She is originally from Bryant Pond, Maine. Most of her family is still up that way, and she spends a lot of time in the western part of the state and Portland. The first poem she ever published, "Junk Drawer Heart",  was in her university's Laurentian Magazine. McCaela draws a lot of herinspiration from Maine, and from her travels elsewhere.