A Fairytale Untold
Dana Blatte
“Every real story is a never ending story.”
- Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
Measure me in the all fish I teach not to swim,
all the velvet places I do not touch
& the syllables I leave untongued.
My red is not your red—
I want the kaleidoscope of window frames.
I want the shavings of sparrows
& the curdle of wine between my ribs.
Instead, tell me all the stories I do not know.
The ones where the twins lose themselves in the woods
& beg their parents not to trace their paths.
The ones where two girls flower into swans
& teach their sisters to harbor thorn & flesh.
The ones where I lull myself to raindrops
& pretend I do not know the ending.
Tell all the fish behind my teeth to leave,
to swim and to find the red I filch from yours,
the words I silk in moonlight & the wood
I fetter into pages, quiet and feathered.
This is a story where I measure myself in the undone
& wane my path into salt—the one
where I pretend immortality & decide
not to know the ending.
Dana Blatte is a sixteen-year-old from Massachusetts. She is published or forthcoming in Fractured Lit, Kissing Dynamite, Gone Lawn, and more, and has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and the Pulitzer Center, among others.