I pose for my fake ID. How old are you sweetheart? Sixteen starts to slip out of my mouth, but the photographer interrupts. I bet you’re nineteen, almost twenty, right doll? I nod and smile, swallowing a few years. No baby, definitely don’t smile. I bite my lip and the photographer gulps like I am a sandwich. I watch my Polaroid likeness emerge from the darkness. In one of them he has cut off my head. Oh, my mistake. He tucks it in his pants pocket. I pay him and leave, my Tampa Bay license still warm from the laminator.
Anna Cavouras is an award-winning, multi-genre writer whose work can be found in lit mags and anthologies. She always carries her feminist agenda. Instagram: @a.cavouras.writer “On a Platter” is the Editor’s Pick for our LIE TO ME contest, part of our 2026 Micromemoir Marathon.