Dana Blatte

Premonition with Extras

After Lily Zhou

I never liked mirrors because of the lies they told.
How a good girl can be a bird: thin-boned, lace-necked,
swinging from a tree. In the script she is always

silent, waiting to be filled. If my life were a movie,
I would be the dead girl in the alley. You would forget
my face before you saw it. I never wanted

to be famous, just known. The way a leaf can love
the wind without ever knowing its name. Everything repeats.
Rewinds: the movie, my smile opening in reverse.

Do you remember me? You and I met in this alley
under the sheet of rain that hissed into the air like smoke,
like each tear was softening us into something new. I cried

for you, because of you, because I saw you in a mirror.
You practiced your mouth: leaning into the telephone,
brushing toward an ear, slipping through a quiet collar.

The buildings darkened. Windows flashed with noise.
This is where the story goes wrong. Every time I tell it
it changes. It works like that, you know: I held it in my palm

until the girl could find her voice. I wonder if this repeats.
The bird, the rain, the city of split throats. Listen
before the credits roll. Maybe you knew me.

Maybe I was famous somewhere.

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Dana Blatte is a junior in high school from Massachusetts. Her work is published in Fractured Lit, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Peach Magazine, and more, and has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and the Pulitzer Center, among others. You can find her hyping up her friends on Twitter @infflorescence.