Citrus Springs

by Paige Johnson

Citrus Springs isn’t just a bunny-dotted, zinnia-speckled city nestled in Florida’s rare dewy hills. It’s a state of mind, albeit an altered one. With “In Bloom” on blare, Paige Johnson gives life to the Wonderland tarts and bitter Xanax fiends who reside in tangerine dreams. Whether these 40+ illustrated poems tell the tale of South Beach sugar babies or Bay Area scrapers-by, the characters are always in search of ecstasy, novelty, meaning. An infatuation so intense, it’s psychedelic.

Poems Lemonade Haze, Communion Wafer, Candy-Flipping, Cornfield Confidants, Trailer Trash Blast, Manifest Destiny, Sugar Mill, Lyrica, Hikers’ High, Whispering Pines, Para-Socialite, Shades of Cool, Sugar/Salt Baby, Cream Charger Queen, Rush Hour, Streetlamp Saviors, Suncoast Blvd., Miss Macchiato, Boca Raton Lead-On, Valentine (H)ex, A Row w/ Roe, What Does Bal Harbor?, When Bay Harbor Sinks, Storm Chasers, Terrarium, Psychi(delic)artist, Tunnel Vision, The Ick, The Look, So Long Sunshine, The Flat Side Of Fruit, Rainbow River, Sweet Tooth, Heavy Hitter, Orange Crush, Paradise Tossed, American Dream, 2-FCKD, La Petite Mort, Sliced Candles, Pink Moon Proposal

This is the second installment of the four-part series, Seasonal Poetry for Distancing Dates and Doses.
Other titles Percocet Summer, Cracked Leaves & Autumn Lines, and Aurora Shards of Winter

134 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 13, 2024

About the author

Editor in chief of Outcast Press, a transgressive fiction/dirty realism poetry publisher.

Reviews

[Paige Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If you take MDMA on top of acid on top of mushrooms, that’s called a Jedi flip. No church-going type will tell you that. They prefer to stay grounded while gazing up at the ultimate Skywalker"

[Cory Mattei · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m honestly not much of a poetry reader, I enjoy them but a lot goes over my head. Citrus Springs is full of fantastic lines that bust from the page, they made me stop and reread them several times while visioning flashbacks of my own life.

Paige is very talented weaving together descriptions, nostalgia, and obscure references. I would really like to read a novel by her, a Kerouac meets Hunter S. Thompson drug fueled road trip.

[KKUURRTT · Rating 5 out of 5]

yeah

Paige is the real deal. She writes drugs like no one else out there and I can’t wait to read more imagery and feeling from her.

[Aaron Schaut · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of poems is wildly surreal. I take in books like this a little at a time. Every now and then, while picking a random poem and absorbing it, you find one that moves you emotionally and almost physically. For me, it’s Lyrica. This book would always have a place on my shelf for that poem alone. Isn’t that how it works, though? I will refer to it again and again. There are few poems that work me up like that.

[Dickson Turpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fantastical poetry, as if written from an altered state, became hypnotic as I read the book. The psychedelic words settle over you. You become immersed in modern, acid-rock Americana, which is fascinating for its creativity and originality.

[Gary Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

These words are sharp. A slicing, cutting critique of the gathering century, twenty-five years in, as we hide behind inebriated shrouds covering our heads in shame.
Paige’s poetry is unrelenting and precise and brings the reader right up against the face of desperation and sickening rationalizations; flakes of skin as communion wafers and sickly, menthol-flavored shots of syrup shared across sticky counter tops to stave off the worst of it all.
Oh, these desperate things we do.

Paige is a Master Poet and deserves recognition.

[Casey Kiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every poem is like a new drug kicking in for the first time. Everything is out of place and perfect as you read a few lines then lie back and question everything, then come back for more; all else being relatable, edible, and endlessly excitable. All the bad things you crave and all the good things you rave are injected into your boredom as the streetlights flicker. Paige creates a devastatingly nostalgic atmosphere because even when the nostalgia isn't the reader's exactly, we feel it still, with absolute ease. She brings us to the brink along with her again and again with consistent confessions, each one gutter-glittering at maximum wattage yet they read like secrets told by your bestie at a witching hour sleepover. A mighty fine balance of raw and poetic punches, this collection is on the map, somewhere between your favorite Walgreens and Wonderland; between the thrift store with the most Lana records and a signed copy of Less than Zero. I'm quickly becoming a PJ junkie as I picture her in her wedges and short skirt. Paige has a whimsical way about her street-sly storytelling and I'm addicted to getting lost in her dissociation. I'll be reading this many more times to find myself. HIGHly recommended.

"I watch you suck up paradise,
eyes impossibly opalescent.
I wonder if your (wish)bones
are as white,
where they'll scatter
tomorrow or never,
if they'll lie close to mine,
ribcages making a little
croquet course or shelter
for sleep-hazy birds
and ground-stricken critters
put out to pasture."

-from 'Storm Chasers'

"If I was a boy or more T than E,
I could masturbate away the emotions,
seduce sleep into my brain
like an incubus,
but something about the half-
heart of a vibrator
reminds me that every lover
spent VDay with another."

-from 'Valentine Hex'