los angeles

there is a girl driving a car on the 10 freeway in los angeles. shes going to a yoga class on la cienega but she wishes she werent. shes doing things like that a lot lately - pushing herself into uncomfortable places because she thinks somehow shes supposed to, that she would be less of a person if she didnt make it to yoga class 5 times a week, or if she talked to anyone about the summer. shes biting her nails and wiping the tiny white flecks on her spandex shorts. shes listening to neutral milk hotel.

two headed boy/ all floating in glass
the sun it has passed/ now its blacker than black

the ten is sticky and echoey and dirty. everyone is alone in their car, not moving, not talking or singing. just staring at the flat gritty bumper ahead of them, inching forward jerkily like a toy on a broken conveyor belt.
once, driving from school back to her house, a blue victorian house with a giant palm tree in the front yard and orange trees in the back, a house she shared with 5 other people, she started to cry. she didnt know why, she wasnt particularly sad that day. it was frustration, something she hadnt actively felt maybe ever. she was frustrated at how identical each day was. the muted sunlight illuminating layers upon layers of dirt. nothing was clean or sharp in LA, everything was murky and rounded, everything blended into each other making it feel like you were a dirty fork floating around in a sinkfull of dishwater. she was listening to NPR and started to cry. at first she just let the tears come out and slide down her cheeks, still staring ahead. and then something inside of her turned a corner and the crying became more and more loud, more violent, more angry. she wanted to fight her way out of the car, off of the freeway. she wanted to rip through peoples windows and scare them, she wanted to take all of it- LA, how lonely she felt, how unfeeling of a place it was, how no one understood her because she refused to admit that there was something to understand other than what she allowed people to know- and beat it with a baseball bat. she didnt want to think about it anymore, she didnt want to think about the summer, about the infinite paths that only led her to prettier and prettier places that she had seen in india. she didnt want to wake up and re-remember where she was, she didnt want to face the pathetic motions she had trained herself to go through, unthinking, unblinking. she wanted to destroy it.
she sobbed and sobbed and screamed and cried and even though she knew no one was watching, she didnt care if they were. she hit the steering wheel and thrashed around and through it all she still managed to lift her foot off the brake when the car in front of her squeezed up an inch. and in the middle of it all she noticed a car next to her, full of teenagers, with the window rolled down. a japanese girl mouthed "are you ok?" and she looked at her for a moment, both of their cars and their days suspended in perfect synchronization with each other. she took a deep breath and wiped away the tears and the sweat and the snot and rolled down her window.
yes, she said. thank you for asking.

oh comely/ i will be with you when you lose your breath
chasing the only/ meaningful memory you thought you had left

she has only moved down one exit. she will probably be late, she thinks, though she always thinks that and then never is. no one makes small talk while waiting for class to begin, which she likes, and she can sit in the sauna before going into the room, which is heated up to 110 degrees. all of the women who go there, most of whom don't work and live in beverly hills or the valley, walk around naked in the changing room. they have shaped pubic hair, if they have any at all, and most of them have fake breasts. they have products, lotions and cleansers and firmers and shapers, and they linger there for hours after class, showering and taking care of themselves. sometimes she gets physically repulsed by the sight of them, of how unnatural and obscene they look naked. she has seen plently of naked people in real life, none of them looked obscene like these women.
in delhi, on the way to the train station, her bus got caught in a human stampede. thousands of people, making their way home or to get food or to go to work, mostly all of them barefoot, kicking up the sandy dirt. some were naked or semi-naked, some were leading cows or other animals. people were defecating in the street, people were carrying insanely heavy amounts of fabric or food. no one was speaking to each other, besides the sound of thousands of feet shuffling. the bus, stranded like an island amidst the ocean of human beings, turned off its engine and waited. it was the middle of july, probably about 110 degrees, even though the sun was setting.
shes moved another exit.

standing on the seaweed water
semen stains the mountain tops

her boyfriends best friend, the person she is afraid is her soul mate, said he could never live in LA. they were sitting at a coffee shop on franklin and a beautiful woman walked by who looked extremely tired and sad. he said, she looks surrendered. like shes flying that white flag. and she had responded, at half mast.
she merges to the right. her exit is next.