Go Gators?
Sea level rise is coming
and Marco Rubio will save you.
Welcome to Florida.
Here Shopping Is a Pleasure, but
the coastal flooding not so much.
Here we disenfranchise felons.
Here our headlines read “face-eating Florida teen wakes up from coma.”
Our state bird is a candy bar wrapper
flying above a landfill.
Who needs mountains
when you can have excessive trash build up?
Our state flower is found on the synthetic print of Hawaiian shirts
donned by tourists
and Spring Breakers.
They come for Mickey Mouse,
Lincoln Road
and booze.
They stay because our shores will charm you.
Maybe some of our people will too.
Our state joy is key lime pie, but our state treasure
is the Everglades.
I grew up with alligators and egrets
in my backyard.
Alligators and egrets
arching their bodies as they navigate
through the concrete poured over their homes.
I’ll never forget realizing it was me intruding,
and not the other way around.
Bio: Marcela Mulholland is a third year Sustainability Studies and Political Science major at
University of Florida who spends a lot of time thinking about the interconnectedness of Life and
stressing about climate change. She feels self-conscious while crossing the street in front of
people and feels happiest at The Reitz Union Barber Shop and Lucky’s Market. Over-committing
and under-performing is her college aesthetic.