LA Weekly is now taking poetry submissions. Interested in having your work posted right here on our arts blog? Send previously unpublished poems along with an image to go with it to poetry@laweekly.com. Check out today's poem after the jump.

Los Angeles Girls Are All the Same

By Amanda Golding

WHEN YOU REALIZE it is not how you perceive, it's how you are perceived while you're stagnant parked on a freeway watching the sun rise, hoping one day you'll afford the view ahead,

You know you are in Los Angeles.

You think you're going to glow 'cause you touched the Hollywood sign and your

Ashy skin is going to all of the sudden be pampered by Sephora and you won't be homeless

You're dreary and you're in Los Angeles.

Most stories unfold with

A doleful dreamer hailing from an insignificant backdrop where the familiarity of dimly lit men in overly illuminated motel rooms feed you lines, “you're so hot, so pretty, take off your shirt. You're a real star, go to L.A.” They're just so wrong.

This isn't some novel or movie where there's some succulent blissful conclusion resulting

With a splendid epiphany where everything's going to be okay, ya know?

Reality: You're going to wane like the moon, become delirious with goals you could never attain.

You think Los Angeles opens its legs as if the city mirrors your image?

Enjoy Los Angeles 'till it swallows you uncut leaving behind fragments of your ideals and dreams

The Santa Anas carry on north, bits of you lost in the smog are pleasantly crushed by natives

That laugh and dance over your remains.

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