Los Angeles

 by Aaron DiMunno

On a recent return to Los Angeles, I was walking the hills off of Mullholland drive. I stood at the peak of some raised area or another. Not sure what you would call it. A cliff? A mountain? One of the jagged arms reaching from whatever the hills that make up Runyon Canyon are called. The shining kingdom of urban suburbia sprawled like an oil spill from the smog choked Pacific in the distance. I looked around at the captivating geography, the rugged canyons so alien to my east coast glacier scraped mountain eyes, the lush vegetation, the palm trees fake as hell. And it struck me how sad it all seemed, crushed under the weight of human development. Beauty battered and oppressed but still there if you looked hard enough. Like the most delicate and beautiful specimen of a woman, sporting a black eye and trying to carry a sofa down the street on her back. That is Los Angeles. If you help her carry the couch up to her apartment, she'll fuck you. She may even let you stay the night. But she'll dodge your kisses and in the morning there will be nothing but a note on the night stand asking you to lock the door behind you. You will never see her again. And every now and then, when you're real low, you will to masturbate to her memory. That is Los Angeles.


Aaron DiMunno enjoys camping every once in a while but he thinks each time that he should do it more often. He had a cat named Moochie LaRue but she died. He is forthcoming in Jersey Devil Press.