SUZI F. GARCIA

Make Me a Carly Rae Mixtape

              2012 was a simpler time, y’know?  As long as you stuck to Netflix & Dairy Queen it was,
anyway. I just don’t have the energy

to care anymore about anything
                       except two cats & the progression
                                 of the spider web on the corner of the ceiling above
my bed. I have never seen the spider which makes me think one day I’ll awaken,

cocooned myself. But as long as the internet connection holds out, I should be okay. 

         [1]Listen, I’m just trying to run an Incan Empire here, ok?

Rebuild a manmade lake in the dip of my mattress without any success. My shoulders curl and like
parchment, I brittle and break. Tomorrow I will MAC mask, because I’ve been watching a lot of
tutorials and a metallic lip to cut may just give me the bravery to face a sunshine state.

HAHAHA[2]—
             go ’head, I’m ready for my close-up now.


[1] Here is where I yawn

[2] I laugh in all the right places

We Lost Sight of Our Guarantees but Stock up on Fireworks Anyway

 

                                          this is an underground city kind of situation, let’s lean into it.

we’re not worried about loss of fire, re-invented snow as a way to create

                                          warmth. our anthems are plural, spelled out

 

 in air patterns made by the movements of our feet, hips, hoola hoop style.

                                          we code new, lipstick letters in royal purple today,

dance across the bricks made of spit, breast milk, mud, mixed w/artificial glow.

 

we provide our own afterlife, and darlings you can join us. dorothy, our mother,

                                          her homecoming patriarchal propaganda, carried nothing but her

feet alone. skipping out of frame to direct, a new call to keep on

                                          keepin’ on, no turning back, ease on til every empire usurped.

Lost Rituals
for Derrick

Someone wrote on the wall of the church

The             Emancipation             of             Suzi             G

                                                                       
                                                                        But here I am still.

                                              Swimming in heels, going through the motions


After all, you’ll always be a part of me.
              I’ll dip
Godiva in champagne, keep an eye out for sunglasses that make me

a honeybee.  Because what’s more
poetic than glitter, than a soft filter wedding?

             So I’m making a new playlist, I’ll hit shuffle. 

We’ll jukebox until
the body exhausts, 
and 

                                                                                       once I heard we could bring salvation back.

I scroll, I invoke—

                                                           now sing.

                                                                                                                                        (who said that?)

Oh            oh             honey             you             got             me             hooked            on            you.

Suzi F. Garcia has an MFA in Poetry with minor Gender Studies and Screen Cultures. Suzi is a Poetry Editor at Noemi Press and a lecturer at the University of Michigan. She love you like XO, and her work can be found at the Offing, Pinch Journal, Reservoir, and more.