Brianna Noll

L.A. Cento #6

           
I’m looking for the best screenwriter
of your generation. Is that you?
 
            I’m out here in the wilderness of ideas, but
            if I push thoughts of distress and unemployment
            out of my mind, I can do more than string
            a sentence together.
 
It’s a hard world for women—they’ve
done studies. What do you say?
 
            Where I grew up there was a lot to contend
            with. Saying it’s all gonna work out fine isn’t
            always enough to spur a young woman on.
 
Do you know Los Angeles?
 
            I know I don’t believe in stereotypical Hollywood
            chick-killing dream sequences.
 
We all gotta dream, don’t we?
 
            I believe that wholeheartedly. I’m a writer.
            I carry a rabbit in this troubled but
            beautiful world.
 
You’re from the suburbs. Do you know what fear
of the poor means in real life?
 
            You’re fucked from birth, writing the worst
            tweet of the day instead of making peace with
            what you don’t have.
 
Is this the start of a psychopath movie?
 
            It’s not crazy or quirky enough. No one’s
            shooting a thousand bullets a minute.
 
What if this psycho story becomes the final
thoughts of a man who chose not the darkness
but the light?

            Then at the critical moment, the great fuckin’ psycho-
            path starts behaving like a decent human being.
 
I’ve been reading your art and peace movie.
What else have you done?
 
            Focusing on framing, on dissolving the barrier
            between the subject and the outside, I sat watching
            the shadow of a little shih tzu, a little message
            about the afterlife.
 
Do you know what that is?
 
            Some gray place. It’s really emotional, having once
            been so much in love with the angels, but I think
            that’s the best we’re gonna get.

​

Sources: Seven Psychopaths (2012) & Nightcrawler (2014)

L.A. Cento #7


Hello, my love, my troublemaker.
Let’s roll. We’ll check out the dress
department at Bloomingdale’s and
try on pretty dresses my family could
never afford, then go to Roscoe’s
Chicken and Waffles. On me.
You best believe I will accept no
substitutes. What’s wrong? Stop.
Stop it. This elegant man is very old
fashioned and wants you to be very
miserable. Don’t let him rob you
of your own ambition. I’ve flown
seven million miles—seen Mexico
and Japan, Koreatown and Compton--
and God knows it’s hard, and
expensive, for a woman to think
herself gold and not a shriveled-up
mango. Listen: You’re 13
years old and work an overlock
machine. You’re a 19-year-old
country girl, white and barefoot,
on parole for possession with
intent. You’re a 44-year-old
black woman, a stewardess, with
retirement benefits that ain’t
worth a damn. You’re 56 years old,
and it looks really good on you,
but as a matter of principle
you think todo lo que soy bueno
es el trabajo. You know life is
handcuffed to sacrifice. You’re not
a hippo, an orca, a beast of burden.
You’re the very best there is,
con un corazón puro. How dare
anybody tell you otherwise.

​
Sources: Jackie Brown (1997) & Real Women Have Curves (2002)

L.A. Cento #8


I am only
words, not
a pretty
girl, not a
robot, not
a light happy
bouncy every-
thing’s fine L.A.
wife. I am only
a resemblance.
You write we’re
a couple, and
you’re the only
one that gets
a say in this.
I am the fear
you carry
around, your
cosmic significance,
your total
misreading of
anything real,
anything like
love. How
do you share
your life with
somebody you
imagine? The
spaces between
words are almost
infinite, and I
can’t live as
your book
anymore.

​

Sources: 500 Days of Summer (2009) & Her (2013)




--
Brianna Noll is the author of The Price of Scarlet (University Press of Kentucky, 2017), selected by Lisa Williams as the inaugural poetry collection in UPK’s New Poetry and Prose Series. She is Poetry Editor of The Account, which she helped found, and her poems have appeared widely in journals including the Kenyon Review Online, The Georgia Review, 32 Poems, Prairie Schooner, and Crazyhorse. She lives in Los Angeles.