#exploding buffalo

A lip stick smeared photograph

left dangling from her hand

Her love was now a discarded polaroid

that she couldn’t rip into pieces 

It only burns, she remembered

The flame so close to her fingers

It left a scar that stayed until her demise

But the polaroid refused to catch fire

She wondered if it was photo that refused

to burn of if it was her ex in the white frame

All the rest burned just fine, she thought

But the rest were parasitic jackals

who fed on her flesh to satisfy their craving

Everyone before this one had a smile

But this one had no smile or frown

He had a face that knew it was looming

Not the end of his life, but of the time

They had together which was a year

He wasn’t that special she’d say

And yet the photo refused to burn

The eyes in the photo haunted her thoughts

They would speak to her and define her

The cracked marble girl who embodied

A silent movie star yet continued to be

the center of every potent conversation

She knew that their relationship would fail

She was going to play him like a skipping

record stuck on Solitude by Billie Holiday

She played their greatest hits again and again

He wasn’t anything special, but he knew me

Nobody could see the frightened nightingale

hidden beneath her smile of concealed desertion

Her cry for intimacy was overshadowed by

her brightly feathered young body

The same she used to enslave and

betray the boy beyond his capacity

to forgive and forget

  The photo is all that was left of him

It refused to burn like the rest, so

She buried it in her backyard and

hoped that it would decompose

Soon after a small plant grew out

from the spot, but it withered when

she tried watering it out of pity

Of course she found others to play with after

But nobody could find the melody of her music

Her solo would sail over waves of masculine dissonance

with a few moments of harmony that would go off key

  Once, they had found each other in a super market

and couldn’t help but stare when the other wasn’t

She acted nonchalant as did he under sunglasses

But their hearts were beating at the same manic pace

They were too scared to utter a word much less

a wave of a hand to say hello or catch up

Her eyes were hidden behind lolita shades

not revealing the tears fighting to break out

His face was a hollow shell of ambiguity

Hiding the fact that he wished for this moment

They were both alone, inside and out

And with a deathly cough they disappeared

Never to see the other again except in memories

That night, she dug up the remnants of the photo

and discovered that it had changed

Now there was an old woman standing alone

She was neither smiling nor frowning

She kissed the photo and shed a tear

The girl drew a match from her pocket

putting the flame beneath the polaroid

A recluse incapable of solitude. Living in the age of the internet, a volatile environment void of privacy.

How do I manage this absurdity?

I am not from here

But I am

I can't help but recognize how different I am

I also can't help how I am the same

I love it here

I love the smell and the people

The other transplants who denigrate this city's worth

I love them because they make me feel better

This beautiful city in the heart of old Mexico

This city undefined, vast in its indifference

I love Los Angeles 

There is no where else that means anywhere

I love Los Angeles

And if you don't 

Let us walk you to the border gleefully 

For if you don't love it here 

You hate yourself