Los Angeles

I refuse to have there be something I need to achieve.

it scares me in small fleeting seconds, the judgement i project on this city I live in, where car horns are honked excessively, & the whole energy is one of “rush.” speed is admired here. wealth defines your social status. this is a corruption. corrupt because it’s a thin, selfish & fearful desire the society within this city feeds off, that there’s always something in the future. the clock eats them. swallows them & digests them whole, then over & over, daily. there’s always something in the future for LA, always. & they never quit chasing the future, because the future never comes.

this is feverish. it makes me dizzy the moment I realize I’m judging them. dizzying as it hits me the blind eye I turn towards my judgment. as if judging the action, was any better than the action itself.

I get honked at too often. These people don’t honk out of near-accidents, or when someone won’t move out of their way. it’s like candy, they honk when they’re irritated & it’s a release, slam the wheel, slam. even at red lights, I must remember to breathe. must remind myself, it’s mandatory I stop. because stopping here feels odd. & I get honked at so often, there’s a fractal in my brain that is almost addicted to the sound of someone honking. so it’s waiting.

traffic here is a metallic taste. I sit in it, & I love the stillness. I love the slowness & I crave so genuinely the lack of abrupt 80-100 mile an hour speeds, everyone always swerving around everyone else only to reach their destination & want to leave that destination for the next. but it’s irony, pure irony, because I can sense the ways all the vehicles around me hold agitated drivers with uncertain passengers. so I wonder, if there’s anyone in the sea of Tesla’s & car windows rolled down to let out the marijuana smoke, I wonder if there’s anyone, like me.

here I am judging. I get it. I want to call it observing, but I am not.

I’m telling you with a bitter sting slippery on my teeth.

I just do hope, there’s someone here like me.

I dislike that I judge because I know I judge out of never wanting to see these actions in myself. & the fear, maybe eventually I’ll sink into the freakishly insane routine of this place, & abide by how it goes.

rush, is the flavor engraved in every corner of every street, it stains the palm tree trunks.

I can’t stand the idea of fufillment in achievement. here, they’re rushing me as passively as possible, to do that. achieve.

I don’t mean to judge.

but I can hear the judgement in every car speeding around me, asking impatiently,

are you on your way to do something important?