Los Angeles // Sarisha Kurup

I.
you can choke on the slick summer air of
Sunset Boulevard grasp at turned backs heavy with consignment designer brocade leather or
nothing at all—bare, sweat-soaked shoulder blades of Mama’s youngest child
she moved to the City of Angels and found only
dirty sidewalks and high fences
no one will turn around
 
people choke every day on Sunset their gaunt limbs singing, flailing at
soot-ridden billboards for that new shit movie with
that bright young beauty queen who doesn’t blink but somehow
she’s there every day mounted on top of that same green apartment
the one with the dying flowers
maybe she’s watching over you
(why can’t she make the goddamn traffic move?)
how many cigarettes does she smoke at 2 A.M. stuck
on Route 1 behind some Honda Civic nightmare
lean your head out into the early morning air and wonder
how many days you spend behind the wheel just waiting
 
(only succulents grow in the California desert but somehow you managed to also
twisting up between the railings of the broken-dream-gutters into the sunlight)
 
they breed special young things on Melrose all
stick-thin-baby-girl-no.52 blonde-fake-Chanel dreamer but believe me
she’s got something goddamn amazing
not like the rest of them
(you are the rest of them)
but she’s choking too her acrylic-finger-nailed hands wrapped around her own slender throat
there was no dust back home but in the City of Dreams it’s thick and red and fatal
​
II.
they took the billboard down in August
scattered the ashes in the Hollywood Hills and
you felt some absence of a God
(where were those heavy eyes?)
there was another girl up there the next week but human beings don’t move on that easily
you of all people know that
there’s a tightening in your throat and panic on your tongue and
suddenly you can’t find the air
 
people are choking on Sunset and Melrose and Rodeo and
the hills have already caught fire so
the ocean is the only place left you
drive over the sand right to where the tide has left its ghostly outline
 
when the waves crash its only frothy white sea foam so soft but you can’t catch it like
the clouds you can’t see in the Southern California sky
there’s a girl too far out maybe she knows how to swim maybe she’ll drown you’ve
seen that blonde hair somewhere but
you just turn around and trudge up the pier because
in the City of Angels you can drown or you can choke and
anything in between is living.