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Emotional Wasteland

By Suzi F. Garcia

It is April now, with its mix of sweet and snow. I stand barefoot on an apartment patio to vape. My toes curl on themselves to fight off the cold and my legs shake under my leggings. I have been drugged officially and unofficially, some would say gone, but I can feel light in my hips as they sway to the song I’m playing in my head. Wave the pen, dance with the smoke from my own lungs. Tonight is not about hurt, it’s not about anger, it’s not about the betrayals I know in my heart will come to pass. There’s nothing deadly in this moment. I am only what I have, the beat I’ve brought with me. For this one hour, I gift myself an unknowing, a single wire from my brain and heart that I have disconnected. I am but the chill on my nose, the smell of weed and new leaves, the car engine in the distance turning over, the flicker of the TV in my neighbor’s apartment, a woman laughs on the screen but I don’t know at what, and that’s okay. I soak up her laughter in the form of projected light, take it on board, and I add it to my wealth.

 

 

Listen as Suzi F. Garcia reads “Emotional Wasteland.”
Added: Tuesday, June 13, 2023  /  Used with permission.
Suzi F. Garcia

Suzi F. Garcia is the author of the chapbook, A Home Grown Fairytale (Bone Bouquet 2020). She is the Co-Publisher of the award-winning independent press, Noemi, and is the Manager for The Lambda Literary Review.

Suzi is a CantoMundo Fellow, a Macondista, a Lambda Literary Fellow, and participated in the first ever Poetry Incubator at the Poetry Foundation. She has served as both a Poetry Editor for Haymarket Books and Guest Editor for POETRY Magazine. Her writing has been featured or is forthcoming in The Offing, Vinyl, Fence, and more.

Image Description: Suzi F. Garcia, a woman with long dark hair, looks off to the right. She is seated and wearing a black shirt. Behind her is a blurred background of a bookshelf and two vases of flowers.

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