Los Angeles, California 2025

You say you want to live in Los Angeles, but you don’t know what it means to really live there.

You’re back now, and everything feels different. The roads are unfamiliar, yet you drive down them as if no time has passed. The world you spent the past four-ish months building suddenly doesn’t exist anymore. This is your home—and somehow, you keep forgetting that.

You smile as you drive away from LAX, eager to make up for all the lost time. Your world here has been on pause ever since you left. Now you have the remote, and it’s time to press play.

Your room is different—things have been moved. Your Oasis poster is rolled up neatly, tucked into a basket in your closet. All your art supplies are gone, replaced with serious books about academic achievement and the quiet fear of never being enough. You pick one up, since you haven’t had much time to read lately. The cover says: My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

That night, you find comfort in your bed, holding the covers a little tighter. You’re afraid you’ll wake up back in your new life, and that this one never existed at all.

You say you want to live in Los Angeles, but you don’t know what it means to really live there.

You yell at anyone who gets in your way while driving, as if you’re not on one of the busiest streets in the city. It’s slowly being gentrified, and every time you look at a price tag, you hold your breath. You order food you can’t quite justify, then force yourself to waste half of it, convincing yourself it will make you look better in the long run.

You and your friend share an overpriced sandwich at Canyon Coffee, giggling as you watch the passersby. You psychoanalyze their lives, wondering where they got their shoes or their thrifted belts. And suddenly, because you’ve been gone for so long, it feels like you’re on a movie set. Ever since I Love LA came out, you’ve felt like a poser.

You wander through Stories, reading the backs of every book you pick up. You take photos of the covers, telling yourself you’ll buy them eventually. You never do. 

You walk down Sunset with your friend. You pass the 1980 Reservoir St parking lot, staring at the empty stretch of concrete. Tomorrow it will be filled with curated vintage clothes you’d have to sell an arm and a leg for. You look down at your shoes—on your feet for the first time since you’ve been back—and realize how outdated they are. You grimace, unexpectedly feeling uncool.

You say you want to live in Los Angeles, but you don’t know what it means to really live there.

You go out to the Cha Cha Lounge, since the Little Friend was taken over by the police. The last time you were there, some twenty-seven-year-old engineering student from UCLA tried to take you home. You ended the night throwing up outside In-N-Out, a worker helping you into your Uber. You were so embarrassed you swore you’d never drink again—yet somehow, you were asked to go out the next weekend.

Cha Cha is cool for the red lighting and the sticker-covered pool table. You ask if they have a mojito—they don’t—so you settle for a vodka cranberry. You drink it quickly, making frequent trips to the bathroom to hit your cart. You stare at yourself in the mirror, turning sideways to look at your stomach in your Intimissimi top. You pout your lips and start sucking on the straw of your drink.

It isn’t that deep, you think to yourself. No one is really looking. 

You’ve grown more confident these past few months, but there are some things you’ll never quite live down.

You dance with your friends to awful music, twirling each other around. Everyone else drinks beer, which makes you self‑conscious about your own drink. Mind you, you’re a little too crossed by now. 

Everyone wants to go outside to smoke a cigarette, and you follow. You take a long inhale, staring out at the street as smoke gathers around you. Cars shoot past. You bite the inside of your lip hard enough to draw blood. No one notices.

You swallow it, relishing the metallic taste in your mouth. 

You say you want to live in Los Angeles, but you don’t know what it means to really live there.

You’ve smoked so much pot that you feel like a shell of the person you once were. Every time you go out, everyone asks if you have weed. The answer is always yes. You stand with them in a circle, passing around whatever you have. That’s really the only intimacy you get these days. You don’t mind, though—it’s nice to feel wanted every once in a while.

This party is in a random mansion in Beverly Hills. Everyone disrespects the place, tossing their things around without a care. Your eyes land on a bong on the pool table. You pick it up, take it to the bathroom, and hotbox yourself in there. 

Then you decide to walk home. You put on your headphones, letting trippy music carry you through the lively streets. You snap pictures of anything that looks aesthetically pleasing, thinking of your spam Instagram later. In an instant, even your passions feel dull, and you turn off your phone.

No one notices you’ve left the party. Did anyone even notice you were there in the first place?

You arrive home that night, smelling like weed and malaise. You sit on your front porch, light a cigarette, and take a long hit. You know your parents can see you on the Ring camera, but there’s a level of trust that keeps them from saying anything.

The city hums around you, but in the stillness of your porch, you wonder if you’ve ever truly been anywhere at all. The city is the same, but you are not—and in that split, you finally notice it all.

Mulholland Scenic Overlook