one day you’ll be
by Ashley Hajimirsadeghi
one day you’ll be
a movie star. Fade in: Marlene Dietrich
in Morocco, kissing the girl in a dimly
lit nightclub, pushing her into the crowd.
There’s not enough room in the spotlight
for the both of you. Fade out. Fade in.
One day you’ll scrounge for pennies in the
lobby of a shabby nickelodeon, somewhere
in Brooklyn at dusk, just to get a thrill,
stitching yourself back together for the
second act. Dissolve to: tonight, too, the
moon was lonely, put on a production
through the dusty windows of the F train.
Cut to: trapped in a black & white television
set, somewhere between Chinatown & Harlem,
you rip at the sutures, put on a show, bleed
devotionals onto the cracked, wet pavement.
The flash of a camera. The passing headlights
of a Honda. Fade to black.
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi’s work has appeared in Into the Void Magazine, Mud Season Review, Rust + Moth, and The Shore, among others. She currently reads for Mud Season Review and EX/POST Magazine, is the Playwriting Director’s Apprentice at New Perspectives Theatre Company, and was a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. Her debut chapbook cartography of trauma is forthcoming from dancing girl press. Learn more here.
