Author Archives: Michelle Garcia

Eucalyptus, undiscovered alphabets, stygian blue,the scent of my middle school crush’s laundry detergent,metaphors real enough to keep in my palms, milk baths,the day my grandma couldn’t remember my name,dead acquaintances and Instagram posts in their honor,the calluses on my heels from when I used to dance,a certain girl I secretly loved, fish I buried inContinue reading “The Things That Live In My Head”

I mean I’ve traced freckle constellations on far too many bare backs to be proud ofbut hadn’t found the right star to land on until I ran my pointer finger across yours. I mean I’d give up my dreams and follow you to Sacramento. I’d pack poems in my suitcase and squeeze your hand onContinue reading “When I Say I Love You More Than Anything”

She makes you tea. Chamomile. Water first, then leaves. Let steep. It’s the way you’ve always taken it, the way I learned from you— water always cardinal. And then, while heat emancipates itself, she sits in your lap and blathers philosophy. The origin of language and ethics and dreams. It’s carnal to you. Enticing. IntellectualContinue reading “I WAS NEVER PEACEFUL”

I can’t speak for yours, but mine— they fall from the apple trees of memory: [lunchbox love letters my mother would pack  under kindergarten grilled cheese sandwiches] [certain smells, like fresh oregano and Old Spice deodorant and the last day of summer in Virginia] [the curvature of my first love’s cheek, too familiar] [my heartContinue reading “Where Do Poems Come From?”

And I’m a monster with a milk mustachestirring Fruit Loops to make the colors run. Today is a good day. Today I will arrange my plastic figurinesin a summoning circle. Ronald McDonald,Snow White, Winnie-the Pooh, Spider-Man.I like it when my best friends hold hands. I also like summer. Summer means haircuts by Mom in theContinue reading “It is August 28, 2004”

We were smart. Cul de sac geniusesin hand-me-down bermuda shorts.My cousins and I, we were raised byBackstreet Boys on the boombox,Kodak disposables, scraped knees.I am nostalgic now, for that textbookAmericana, 25-cent lemonade stands,and yard sales where we’d bid farewell tooutgrown tricycles and pink dollhouses. We could braid, too. French and Dutchand other styles we’d inventContinue reading “As Kids”

but for me, it’s formal dining rooms and how to eat neatly in themand family portraits with everyone clad in the same shade of beigeand how unlike your mom is from my mom and how unlike youare from me, even though I hunger for you and would like to sitwith you in the car withContinue reading “I Don’t Know What You’re Scared Of”

I would feed you joy on a silver spoon.  I would make you paper kites and breakfast past midnight and origami fish to hang from your ceiling.  I would heal the parts of you that shattered when you were too young to know how to reassemble the pieces.  I would do anything to watch theContinue reading “IF I COULD”

Insulated water bottles filled to the brim with illicit spirits, our bare backs pressed flat against the secret slopes of Appalachia. Tipsy fingers meddled with the buttons on my cardigan until we found it in the sweet grass hours later, soaked in starlight and the dewy scent of us. We were the architects of makeshiftContinue reading “MAHOGANY”

That time, late January, when you met me under the elm tree at the corner of our block after midnight. How we walked for miles under cloud-covered stars, bodies mercilessly stiffened by winter, how I cried in the corn fields because the man I loved couldn’t love me back at the depth that I couldContinue reading “J”