florida from above by Nico Bryan
fingerling lakes and highways stretched out like concrete canvases. still searching for god in this godless place and yet all I’ve found is the sun kissing the tops of every single body of water. if sinking is catharsis then drowning is self preservation. have you ever seen a sunset so phantasmagoric you lost yourself in it?
“I wrote this little prose ditty on a flight home from Florida. I was in a really strange headspace, it was an early flight, and I was sort of feeling the magnitude of my emotions. I looked out over the Florida landscape and it was all fingerling lakes and the sun kissing the tops of them all. I thought this would be a great setting for a love poem to my home state. Instead, this was all I could muster to write. I’ve attempted to come back to it a million times but always end up leaving it alone in my notes. In a way, it feels complete on its own and I love that it could continue but instead ends on a question, being the question I asked myself in that moment.”
Nico Bryan (she/her) is a queer poet from sun-shiny Florida currently residing in NYC. Her poems have been featured in Sad Girls Club, BurrowPress Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, etc. etc. etc. You can follow her on instagram at: @nicobryo