On ramp after off ramp, your knees twitch violently past exit signs and glowing red brake lights. You grind your teeth along with the screeching of your engine and your hands sweat as you squeeze the last bit of living out of the steering wheel. You try to move to the right, to the left, and back to the right again but you are tossed, head pulsating, into the concrete tide. Your ears ring with the devious sound of dollars being guzzled by gas tanks. You eyes are heavy with fatigue. You head nods as the polluted sun begs a bead of sweet perspiration down the front of your forehead. Your dirt stained pockets are as empty as your success. Months have passed since you climbed through a web of naive certainty to meet me face to face. Beguiled by my fantastic promises, you have only started to cradle my undeniable misery. 

I felt sorry for you at that moment, having taken advantage of your young mind and your hopeful spirit. I was not what you imagined - but I was never hiding. You should have known that I would be in control. You should have known that you are not the only one trying, but that you are so alone in you endeavours. You scream at me through your damp t-shirt and throbbing veins, your mouth wrenches your face into a loathsome glare. “You have made me into more than myself,” you wailed, “you have made me into you”. I am sorry to have taken you away from yourself, but it is simply my nature; the nature of Los Angeles. Samantha Fernandez