Unfriend, A Poem by Rachelle Cruz

I've tried to unfriend you, Los Angeles.
Your breath snakes through
my morning shavasana,
your wind beats the dusty blues
out of the black lab abandoned
at the magnolia this morning.

Unquenchable, you drink the faces
on moving billboards.

When I need your silence,
you sneeze sirens at night.
When I call for advice,
you send my windows shaking.

I've tried to unfriend you, Los Angeles,
but on Brockton, a man listens in my direction,
the rush of my feet to work.
His seeing eye dog tilts toward my soles
crashing against the pavement.
A clean razor glide interrupts
the bus driver's left eyebrow.

Today, he lets me ride without a student ID.

An old woman eats an orangsicle
everyday at two o'clock
when I leave for my second job.
Students ask me to help them
write sentences using words
like "regurgitate" and "urinate."

At dusk, your million eyes blink on,
bumper-to-bumper on the 405
freeway in every direction.
Somewhere, there is a man
I mistake for the firefly I love
lighting his way toward us.
This haze. This engorged sunset.