The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: "What Hollywood Taught Me" by Alison Taverna

“HEADLINE: Justin Bieber’s Wild Night at Brazilian Brothel”

After the story leaks, Justin storms our hotel room. Rio de Janeiro is a raged rumor.
The magazines say he snuck into Centaurus, pulled Tati Neves to his villa
by her cheetah skirt. The morning after video an exclusive look.

Justin hurricanes across the carpet, fastballs a stray water glass against a bedroom wall.
The noise microphones through a billion mouths. When E! News announces: she looked
identical to the pop star’s ex heartbreak Selena Gomez, Justin slumps to the floor.

I don’t need the truth. I think, he is only a child and only for a little longer. His spine
already knotted and thin. I say they will make you disappoint them.
Justin presses my cold hands to his neck, whispers there was nothing Selena about her.

This selection comes from the poetry chapbook What Hollywood Taught Me, available from Seven Kitchens Press. Order your copy here.

Alison Taverna holds an MFA in poetry and a certificate in publishing from Chatham University where her thesis, If We Keep These Bodies, won the Best Thesis in Poetry award. She is currently the Associate Editor at Autumn House Press and the poetry instructor at Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) High School. Her first chapbook, What Hollywood Taught Me won the 2015 Robin Becker Prize from Seven Kitchens Press. Visit Alison here.

Beth Couture‘s work can be found in a number of journals and anthologies, including Gargoyle, Drunken Boat, The Southeast Review, Ragazine, and Thirty Under Thirty from Starcherone Books. Her novella, Women Born with Fur, was published by Jaded Ibis Press in 2014 as part of its Blue Bustard Novellas series. She graduates with her Master’s in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College in May, and she lives in West Philly with her husband and five cats.