Florida girl is eating a stalk of celery with peanut butter and sand. She is trying not to choke. Florida girl knows about flannel moth caterpillars and puss caterpillars, how soft they look and how dangerous their fur. Florida girl is always chasing her baby brother, who can hit a lizard with a rock dead, despite that he is only three and doesn’t ever want to wear clothes. Florida girl has an illegal pet tortoise. Her father almost hit it and said it would have died. She feeds it lettuce and lawn. Florida girl has rich friends, which she shouldn’t. They take her to amusement parks. Once, she lost twenty dollars at Busch Gardens and cried over it for weeks. Her Florida sister works at a bakery for less than minimum wage because she is less than minimum age and she brings home day old bread sometimes. Florida girl drinks orange juice from the oranges in the yard. Florida girl has sand in her food because she is always at the beach. When Florida girl’s scholarship dries up, she transfers to public school, where she is bullied mercilessly. One day, in geography, she stands on a desk and yells “Leave me the fuck alone.” And miraculously, they do, everyone, the teachers don’t even call her parents. Florida girl wishes she had yelled anything else instead. Florida girl never has the right words. The Gulf of Mexico swallowed them all.
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Elizabeth Joy Levinson lives, teaches, and writes on the southwest side of Chicago. She has an M.F.A. in poetry from Pacific University and an M.A.T. in biology from Miami University. Her work has appeared in several journals, including Grey Sparrow, Up the Staircase, Apple Valley Review, Hawk & Whippoorwill, LandLocked, and Slipstream. Her first chapbook, As Wild Animals, is available through Dancing Girl Press, and her second chapbook, Running Aground, will be available in the fall of 2020 from Finishing Line Press.