A New Mother's Thoughts (Monologue)

I’ve always been the type to change my mind. And it’s not like I entered into something with the thought I was going to change my mind, it’s just that I would. I would enter a decision knowing that this time, this time would be different and I would be able to follow through with it. I wouldn’t chicken out. I remember, once, I was standing in line for a roller coaster. I mean, I was deathly afraid of heights but I was so sick of being afraid. I just wanted to go, so that I could say I did it. I knew there was nothing that I should actually be afraid of; I knew I was safe. But, each jarring step made my stomach drop lower and my heart rise higher into my throat. I still walked forward and berated myself mercilessly for my cowardice. I remember sliding into the cool seat and fastening the harness. My face was dry at that point. The tears weren’t coming, and I was going to ride that damn beast. And then the bored looking girl came to check my seatbelt, make sure I hadn’t fucked up the simple task of tightening it (some people are idiots) and I burst into a snotty groveling mess, and I begged her to let me off. I couldn’t go through with it. I could see her annoyance, and my fellow passengers scowl, and I knew that what they saw was a bratty childish girl who didn’t know what she wanted. I was too scared to go through with it and I didn’t know how else to react. I wanted to stop before anything happened; before I had a chance that I couldn’t say no again.

And really, that’s how I am with anything. I take it as far as I can, til the last possible second, and then I stop it before it’s too late to stop it. I don’t know why I’ve been that way. Before I met, well, him. Before I met him, I was engaged once. He was wrong. He was a short, manipulative dick. I knew I didn’t like him or the games that he insisted on playing. I didn’t like the way that he made me feel, as if I was lucky to be with him and I didn’t deserve anyone who would like me back. I listened to the way he would talk about his ex-girlfriends, and his brothers’ exes, and I thought that I had to stay with him just so I could avoid being a future ex and having someone talk about me in that same awful tone with that horrible look. I remember, that I went to stay with his family, and he was staying in a different house. And he snuck in through the screen door in the middle of the night. And I should have made it clear that that was wrong and disgusting and never had spoken to him again at that moment, but I didn’t. I told him not to do it again, and I stayed, and I hated every advance that he made, and I despised his fat creeping fingers, and his breath, and I hated his touch. I begged him to stop and he said “I know you care about me because you let me touch you even though it makes you uncomfortable and even though you’re asking me to stop”. I was weak.

I broke up because I was too afraid to spend my life with a man I knew I hated, and whose children I would probably end up hating too.

I don’t hate you. I want to tell you before I go on that I don’t hate you. I don’t know how I feel and I can’t describe it, but I know I couldn’t ever hate you because you’re more than me, and you’re mine. I didn’t hate….well, I didn’t hate him. I don’t know how I felt, but I think that I was with him because I was playing chicken with myself. I wanted to see how far I would go before I said no, but when I was with him, I was not afraid so I never said no. But I realize now that’s because it isn’t over, because of, well, you. Because of what that situation is, I still have the chance to back out and to stop everything and to start over.

I wish, that if my mom was confronted with the choice, that she would have chosen differently than she did. Then, maybe, I never would have had to play this weird game with myself, and I wouldn’t have put anyone else at risk. I wouldn’t have felt the need to go walking at 4 in the morning in dark and deserted streets.

I can’t say no, though, because you might say it for me. And this time, I’m not making the choice for myself. Maybe it is too late even though the doctors say it technically isn’t and even though the people who think overpopulation is a threat think that I have no right to you. Maybe if I say yes, and I don’t stop this insanity then I have made the wrong decision.

There’s no right thing to do now, and I just have to muddle through. I need to make some sort of decision soon, and I am so tired of waiting and thinking in circles. But there’s no straight line that makes sense. And I could talk to, well. I could talk to him. But then he’d run because you’re not his the same way that you’re mine. And how could I call you a mistake? I mean, we both willfully committed the act knowing all of the possible outcomes and nothing is ever 100 percent.

If he runs, then he runs. I won’t hold him and I don’t know if I want to hold him. But I’m buckled in and I’m not going to cry to have someone save me from this. I’m tired of running away and I’ve put myself into this. Maybe you’ll end up being one of those “Despite All” stories. And I think I could live with that.

I don’t know though. I don’t know what my mind is, so I can’t change it. I guess that’s something?

Of Thee I Sing

Freedom is a precarious thing

And no more applies to me than it does to you

Ask the shoemaker.

Two plus two equals five

To believe anything else makes you insane

Vanzetti shakes over and over in his grave

Covering his ears

What’s dead can be killed again

In new faces and new terrors

Too many ists

Anarchist, Communist

Spread your legs because what’s mine

Is mine and what’s yours

Is mine.

You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards.

Two plus two equals three.

I reek of ignorance for thinking

Rights exist for the wicked

He’s clearly guilty,

The shoemaking man

Tarred and feathered by his own breath

By his neighbor’s fears

Ignorance is strength

I am sane

I am sane

Two plus two is four

(And one more)

I still believe in a place called

Hope

A place called

America

All animals are equal

But

Some animals are more equal than others

The Hesitant Dance

I dance around your words

As much, if not more

Than you dance around mine

Each step soft, unsure

A breathless question

I dare not ask

You dare not answer

We share our dreams but nothing else

Stuck in the dark that

We've chosen

(I'd choose that dark again and again)

I'd willfully lose my chance

For living in light

You are the Jilted Lover

Already

Too far from my saving

Too easily fragile

You'd only want my breaking too

It's safer to be alone

And whole

Then in a million little ---

And if you were to ask

I'd dance away fast

Into the comforting dark

Thick pillows of night

But you won't ask

As I promise it's safer

To dance on a million uncertain unsaid yesses

Then the finality

of a definitive

No

Passion and fire burn too hot

But the frigid winter's night

Is much too cold

Just continue

Continue to dance around me

As I dance around you

Monster-Man

break the broken girl

she's begging

lost and little

already gone

wishing she was alice so she could disappear down a rabbit hole

she's late she's late she's late

You're too late

to save so break

the late little girl sits

staring from her corner

up at the Monster from over her bed

she calls him Daddy

and cries

each new Monster Master Sir

is Daddy

what's new?

run alice run or you

will meet a Monster anew

Fault

Scene: Boy is alone, sleeping. Suddenly he feels a draft, and wakes up, sitting up in bed. There is a girl sitting on the edge of his bed.

Girl: This time, it was your fault.

Boy: I’m sorry?

Girl: This time it was your fault.

Boy: What was my fault?

Girl: Usually it’s mine, but this time it was yours.

Boy: Who are you, why are you here?

Girl: Those would have been the right questions, but it’s too late now. Your fault.

Boy: Are you on drugs?

Girl: I was one of the times when it was my fault. This time, it was a missed chance.

Boy: I don’t understand.

Girl: Next time, maybe it will work out.

Boy: Next time, what will work out? What’s my fault?

Girl: I’m sure you know.

Boy: I don’t even know who you are.

Girl: And therein lies the problem.

Boy: What are you even saying?

Girl: That it’s your fault. Not mine.

Boy: Yeah, got that. What do you mean?

Girl: I can’t break it down much more. This time-

Boy: It’s my fault. But what are you talking about?

Girl: A missed opportunity. It only comes once in a lifetime, you know.

Boy: Right, well, I’m sorry.

Girl: You aren’t.

Boy: Well, no, probably because you’re crazy, and you broke into my room, and I have no clue what you’re talking about.

Girl: I just wanted to tell you, that this time, it was you who was wrong. It’s usually my fault, but this time it’s yours. 
 Boy: What did I do?

Girl: You waited too long.

Boy: I don’t get it. What did I wait too long for?

Girl: I’m gone now. There’s no second chances this time.

Boy: And I suppose that your being gone is my fault?

Girl: No. You not acting when you were supposed to was your fault. Me being gone is just life acting like life.

Boy: I don’t understand.

Girl: You think too much. You always have.

Boy: Oh yeah, and how do you know this? I don’t even know you.

Girl: We’ve known each other lifetimes.
Boy: What does that even mean?

Girl: Stop deflecting. You know I’m right.

Boy: Right about it being my fault?

Girl: No.

Boy: Right about what?

Girl: You always think too much.

Boy: Fine. Whatever. I guess that means it’s always my fault then.

Girl: No, most times it’s mine.

Boy: And those are the times you think too much?

Girl: No, those are the times I think too little.

Boy: I still don’t understand.

Girl: It’s ok, I can wait.

Boy: I thought you said there were no second chances.

Girl: There aren’t any second chances right now.

Boy: So what are you going to wait for.

Girl: The next time.

Boy: I don’t understand.

Girl: It’s ok, you don’t have to yet. I just wanted to let you know, that this time it was your fault.

Boy: What is my fault?

He turns to look, and the girl is gone. He shakes his head, lays back down, and falls asleep.

The Widow

A mourning young widow sits alone

Ignoring all calls to her phone

She can’t confide

Since her husband died

And she won’t throw the jackals a bone

Her husband had been young, sweet, and rich

Whose ex-wife was a conniving bitch

She held on for years

With wine and fake tears

Then she killed him and dumped him in a ditch

At least the orange jumpsuit made her fat

But the widow wanted her alone with a bat

The ex didn’t care

When the widow screamed “Beware!”

And called her a nasty old rat

The widow is downing some whiskey

In college, it made her feel frisky

Now she just cried

Wished she could hide

She had no idea what to do with his key

The doctors had prescribed her some pills

And said “If you take too many it kills”

But he had her heart

And a head start

So she downed the whole bottle with chills

The Truth

I dream empty dreams

And

Speak empty words

Each thing I

Say is supposed to be

The truth

But

I’m only scratching

At a surface of

Some intangible

Space. I talk and talk

And talk

Each word burning

From my throat. I’m lost

In this wild sea and

Reach for some

Way I can latch onto that

Safe and sure way

But each

Stroke drags me

Deeper to the

Bottom. I’m stuck

Swallowing

The bitter salt. Hoping

For death with no real strength

Everything I’ve ever said

Sounds like the words

Of  a bigger better man

Is this what it means

To belong

To some higher consciousness?

I’m stuck

Scratching

At the posts hoping

For some flash of

Brilliancy beauty truth

Instead I’ve found

Piles of useless shit

Stuck to my heels

Some transcendental

Soul

Has seen and scoffed

At my pitiful attempts

To write some peace into

My life