Status Updates From Citrus Springs (Seasonal Di...

white commas lounging in our noses. Those are the dusty hammocks of cul-de-sac kids like us.

when the night’s as still and dark as an inkwell, I wanna lie belly-first on the open road, feel its crags kick into my ribcage and hipbones.

I forget when I’m quoting you or to unwind instead of rewinding the past until the tapes’ tracking degrades to a grainy blue.”

a bomb-strapped supermodel in your Imperial Bedroom, a luxe-jaded, secret-trading tabloid Informer.

bright-eyed Paul Allen and bristle-tailed Patrick, porn-lipped Lindsey Lohan and loud-cracking college kids,

you extinguish the burning cherry of your cigarette in the melting scoop of vanilla an assistant plated for us, unseen. nicotine-inked fingers find their way up my throat

This seems a funny stop on your book tour since Tampa is more likely to roll hash into the free pages of motel bibles than buy their own, but I suppose the content is flaming either way.

Whatever peels open the clouds, softens the growl of another day’s death rattle, the glare of another tomorrow morning.

the beats and lyrics will latch stronger to our souls once night breaks open like a pearl necklace on black marble, when we’re cocooned in some starchy motel sheets, our hands full of one another, and our eyes K-glazed. Ketamine our love language.

No intermission on the interstate, we sing street gospel & EDM eulogies,

We creep through towns vine-eaten, rust-crusted, snort up Colonial columns with construction cones, sweating out the car A/C and swaying to a playlist of Teenage Dreams and Pinkerton loops.

We listen to the Crime Report’s caught criminals, saying, “We won’t end up pavement like them.”

count cows and pills, count churches with collection plates we’ll siphon
from the stained-glass-shaded pews.

our cinnamon vapor trails leave the block hot, smoky, as two bandits do.

My man and I leave with one bruised suitcase between us. We aren’t sure of a destination, but everywhere welcomes a dealer, his test tube potions & my lash flutters.

who needs the ultraviolence of counterfeit friends, fried con-nections & rumors drizzled over the weak umbrellas of strong drinks?

I’ll miss Magic City with its flamingo-pink sky(scrapers) and dizzying casinos to prowl for blue(chip) sugar daddies,

We prefer our own brand of violence. Nothing personal, we just do bingeing, babeing & street-clogging better, bougier. A dash of class sprinkled on those oiled tits

Polyester makes even Pillsbury Boys pettable.

Would invite you over to feed my baby gator, but Li’l Tator gets jealous of company, and, when you toss that baseball straight up and down like a snipped yo-yo, it’s too easy for him to mistake as an ibis. 

Florida girl at heart: batshit beach bum with wind-hurt hair and a salty tongue.

Dentist didn’t even let me peep them, pocket the pulpy teeth like dice gritted with 11 years’ luck

I guess home always stays in stasis, and the yous I imagine never molt or move either.

You spellbind me in bandage strands of smoke and snow until we’re twelve mornings from tomorrow,

“Every night’s a party if you make it that way.” I follow your lead and fall into a cartoon pothole, a portal to a pastiche of my past and promising future.

I got one sad daddy in my elbow now. His eyes greener than my sundress as we drive through the fanning needle palms. Mouth meaner than a snip-eared pit, but only to the South Beach leeches.

“We’re between boyfriends,” you laugh off with Lana-ish lash-flaps and the flame of your Clipper. “Not out of luck or wishes.”

we order “Vanilla Coke” from the buzzcut barback who doesn’t deal in liquids—not since something about lysergic acid and orange juice coming alive like Lazarus.

My favorite memories never happened—in a darkwood bar latticed with Christmas lights

The morning I never meet brims with so much promise. I’ve seen it in bar mirages, dreams splashed in countertop spots: