Behind the pages is a girl from South Florida trying to make sense of memory, longing, and all the strange little rituals that keep us alive. My work is usually fueled by cafecito, thunderstorms, old photographs, overthinking, and the occasional existential crisis in a bookstore parking lot.

I write poems the way some people leave voicemail at 2 a.m.—too earnest, slightly unhinged, and usually haunted by at least one ghost from girlhood. I tend to write about exile, devotion, neon light, swamp water, saints, motel signs, perfume bottles, abandoned roadside attractions, and the soft chaos of wanting too much. Most poems begin with one strange image I can’t let go of. I once pulled over on the side of the road just to write down a line about a dying strip mall sign. It made it into a poem. The sign is gone now. I also have an alarming habit of treating every antique store like an archaeological dig site and every strange encounter like it might secretly be the beginning of literature.

When I’m not writing, I’m usually teaching, rereading the same four poets like they personally raised me, wandering museums too slowly, or convincing myself that buying another notebook will finally fix my life. It never does. But the notebook will be beautiful. Somewhere in my apartment, there is always a stack of books threatening structural collapse and at least three pages of handwritten notes I can no longer decipher.

I believe poems should have teeth. I believe memory is unreliable but useful. I believe the Florida heat has permanently altered my brain chemistry in ways both poetic and medically concerning. I believe longing is its own kind of folklore. And I believe a good poem should leave a little glitter, a little grief, and at least one strange image lodged in the body long after the page is turned.