LA Woman
A Poem for Eve Babitz 
by Jade Wootton

The furthest people walk in LA is to their car
The jacaranda blooms look pretty til they get stuck on your windshield
And sometimes even then
I am unsure whether to call their sap persistent or resilient 
Either way it sticks 
I make the same mistake twice 
But at least this time I’m trying to reel myself in
Co-star tells me my heart is a balloon
I guess that just means by nature
It floats until it combusts 
I tell my mom in the grove parking lot that I’m a volcel now
And without skipping a beat she says I should use it while I have it 
And isn’t it great how they replaced the pacific theaters with an AMC 
Instead of getting rid of the movies entirely
My Uber driver runs a red light and almost collides with someone turning left onto the 101  I tell him to keep his death drive to himself
Have you ever done no contact forever 
And does it ever stop feeling like silence

Jade Wootton graduated summa cum laude from New York University (’17) with a major in English and American Literature and minors in Creative Writing and Psychology. Her work appears in Electric Literature, Bad Pony Mag, Heavy Feather Review, and several collaborative zines, including Playedboy and Que Será. She has read her work at Brooklyn-based readings, in community-oriented spaces such as Molasses Books, Jones Beach Bar & Cafe, and Cafe Erzulie.

@jade__wootton