fireworks - a poem by me

i had an audition on the fourth of july. i thought the studios would be closed but directors know that girls like me don't have family to visit or apple pie to eat. four p.m and my face is ready. fat mitigated. hair tamed. i know what i'm getting myself into. i see the clipboards, the stool the girl before me sat on, the camera that captured another face. i hope it was an uglier one, with less care to detail and more obvious eagerness. i fear it was someone important. someone with a dazzling surname of legacy and just the face and attitude they're looking for. but i can't show how competitive i am.
so i do my routine, feigning a pout, batting my lashes, tilting my head and playing pretend. today i'm a preacher's daughter. today i'm a showgirl. today i'm a car washer. i know the archetypes.
i try to zoom out, imagine myself through a lens of grain and dispersion, neon spotlights dappled upon my face. it's getting dark out, the first fireworks are going off. god bless america. the country of ample stars, the land of the free. we're all free to be stars.
i think of the ghosts of july fourth's past that come to haunt me in this studio. behind the man with the clipboard is marilyn monroe. behind the man at the camera is sharon tate. behind the man who greeted me is rita hayworth. but behind me is my german mother, whose surname i traded for "lake." whose body i rejected and whose teachings i forwent in favor of a fairy tale. i have a fantasy. i want to live forever as a star on the american flag.
subtract a year or two, a pound or two, and my resume is perfect. "you're lovely." he says. boom, says a crackling firework.
the man behind the camera is dismissed. the man who greeted me is too, and now it's just me and the one with the clipboard. he's done taking notes. now i'm about to do something bad, something that witches and evil queens do in fairy tales. i look at marilyn, blonde and star spangled. then i look back at my mother. who will i disappoint?
boom, goes a firework.