Los Angeles
by Marie Estelle Bland
The smog soaked hills
of my memory
wrap me up, but I do not
choke on the thickness
of their embrace. I’m from here.
I can make them out from a mile away.
I think it takes a past
to rightly distinguish
between the ridges and the sky.
The blanket that kept me warm
is muted and gray, but I am not.
I live in this basin happily. My lungs
are half soot. My father loves
his sun-touched bald spot. His father
died of lung cancer.
They came back here. I will too.
We all come back and
choose to inhale.
Marie Bland is an undergraduate at Stanford University who doesn't know what she's studying yet. She hopes you enjoyed reading her poem more than she is enjoying quarantine. You can find her on Instagram @blandwiches.