When I was 12-13, I saw a scene from forcoloredgirlswhoconsideredsuicidewhentherainbowisntenuf. I became OBSESSED with Ntozake Shange's style of writing. I was already a poet devouring Alice Walker and Nikki Giovanni. Though I recognized her importance, I was never really into Maya Angelou because I felt like her poetry didn't have enough teeth. But Shange? Shange's words felt like shark bites and I longed to be able to put words to paper that would give other people a similar sensation. Senior year of high school, my best friend gave me a copy of the play that I still have now. When I moved to New York in 2000, I began writing more than just poetry and short stories. My words began to evolve and in 2001, I'd cobbled together a bunch of feelings in play form and called it Roughdraftofmylife. Since the original staged reading in 2002, it has undergone several transformations, and I have written MANY other words since then, but it has still remained my magnum opus....for now.
ROUGH DRAFT OF MY LIFE
CHARACTERS:
Though the women are each individual characters, the lines should get a little blurry
and this is why sometimes they speak in unison, sometimes they echo each other.
Woman 1 (the nurturing one: she feels everything physically, the poet)
Woman 2 (the pensive one: she is removed distant, a bit of a nag)
Woman 3 (the dramatic one: she has lived & healed, kinda bitchy)
Woman 4 (the impulsive one: acts without thinking, very emotional)
His Voice (never seen)*
SETTING : The stage is a fairly open space, sparsely furnished to look like an apartment. There should be a living room area and a bed area with no defined break between the two, but each with enough space for all women to be seated when they need to be. The key is for them to have enough open space to move how they want, dance, yet still have places to rest drinks etc. There needs to be chairs/seats for the women to set their bags on when they enter the “room”
MUSIC : Mario “Break Up”
#4 is on stage by her self.
MUSIC: Beyonce “Countdown”
Women enter gradually each carrying a bag and a bottle of alcohol. The bags should contain the accoutrements needed for the ladies to get ready for a night on the town and a slumber party.
LITTLE GIRL’S VOICE
4: All I ever really wanted was a daddy,
3: All I ever really wanted was a daddy
1: All I ever really wanted....
2: ....was a daddy
1: My father financer you were,
1&3: Loving me with your wallet.
1: Paying for peace.
1&4: Hoping for happiness,
4: You could not see.
I found the hug in your pocket.
(the one I needed those times my team didn’t win)
(UNISON: (overlaps) my team didn’t win!
1: I heard the «it’s okay’s»
2: (overlaps) «it’s okay’s»
1: in your silence when your coins couldn’t comfort.
4: You were my valiant knight,
Hiding behind my mother’s face
When you lacked the courage to stand up for me
3: (overlaps) stand up for me.
4: I forgave you long before you fucked me…
2: Excuse me?
4: (overlaps) Excuse me, rather, before I allowed myself to be fucked by those like you.
2: I called a few Daddy, Papi, but never loved them like I wanted you to love me, unconditionally,
1: never judging.
2: I was your daughter, but never your little girl.
3: A bouncy photo-op on your knee, always making pretty fo2 : You didn’t know any other way.
2: You didn’t know any other way.
1: I can’t fault you.
4: I forgave you years ago for forcing me
into arms that would never appreciate that within them. Men who never treated me like I was someone’s daughter.
3: I can barely remember the names of all those I hoped would make me forget.
But I remember you,
2 Your smile. How I cried that it would be for me.
1: Am I what you dreamed of laying in my mother’s arms ?
2: Putting together the pieces of your cheeks,
4: her eyes,
3: whose smile ?
2: Not yours…I only wanted to make you proud.(rippled by 3&1)
4: I only wanted to make you proud.
(music fades out)
MUSIC : Cee-Lo “Closet Freak (Instrumental)”
1: Once upon a time there was a little girl who wrote poetry and wanted to sing... this little girl grew up with only a few people ever hearing her words and even fewer hearing her voice. She tried to ignore her songs. She wanted to make her parents proud.
4: She married a man she didn’t love and eventually had a little girl she didn’t want since she was half his as well…but she grew to love her little girl and found that she loved her little girl more than she loved her voice, more than she loved her own words and of course much more than she loved her husband.
2: Years passed. Her little girl grew into a big girl. This little girl’s big girl wrote poetry and wanted to sing too. She heard her mother’s songs while she was in the womb and never forgot them.
3: She was a loudmouth who forced people to hear her words. She was singing and writing for both of them....she found her voice changing…..she felt torn between different selves….
1: she felt like different people….
2: she felt different….
4: she felt the same…she gave her words away to ears that were unworthy….
3: but it was alright,
4: she cared for them even less than her mother loved her father….
2: for her they were all only auditioning for a part they could never play….(music fades)
1: they were each a draft…each one was a rough draft of her life….
3: There once was a girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.
1 or MOMMY’S VOICE : Be sweet honey.
3: And when she was good she was very, very good…
2 or LITA’S VOICE : Sea Juiciosa.
3: But when she was bad....
2: No. Yo soy atrevida.
3 : ...she was horrid
4: I will be wicked.
4 : Wicked like…Like when you goin’ to go to the Go-Go….(MUSIC : Junkyard Band –“Uh Oh”) If you ever go to DC, you haven’t lived until you’ve been to the Go- Go. There is something about that music reverberating through your body. But you almost gotta grow up on it in order to appreciate it. The band knew what they were doing…They’d hit a breakdown and it was something ancient that made your hips move…There were those who’d wile out with it and start stripping….It was almost a religious type of possession. The music would move you to do this. The spirits would reach up into your body and you had no choice but to follow their rhythms….it didn’t matter how you looked or how you moved, as long as the music moved through you, you were a part of that huge throbbing, pulsing body in the darkness of the dancefloor. I pity those who don’t appreciate the rawness of the dance….
2: Folks got carried away at home… started getting too crazy at the GoGo’s…Shooting each other down like dogs and shit….girls taking off all their clothes! I couldn’t mess with it no more….(MUSIC: Azealia Banks –“ 212”) But I still loved the music….I still love the drums and the sounds… I started going to other clubs…looking for that same feeling of the spirit…Looking for that same feeling of the breakdown or the slow jam….
3: But at the club, you gotta wait for the DJ to start playin’ some dancehall music in order to get close…(MUSIC : Dawn Penn -‘No,No,No’) I mean close like you wanna be close….Not close like some of these cats out here dance…Trying to dry hump you to every single solitary song that comes on…Introducing themselves to you crotch first…(demonstrates) Trying to dig into you through your clothes on every record the DJ spins…What the fuck? Then they got the nerve to get mad that you don’t want them on your ass. Those guys make it almost not worth your while to be out….
1&2: Sometimes you get lucky….
1: Then the groove slows down and HE comes to dance with you from over by the speaker. When you’re dancing with somebody...there’s that moment of acceptance when they first approach you, and you want him to approach you...that unspoken understanding...um...that’s the only reason I love going out to the club...It’s like the little junior high school dances back in the day when the DJ would play a slow song, (MUSIC : Jodeci – “Stay”)
2: and all the boys were on one side of the room deciding who was going to dance with who...Then the boy you always wanted to talk to somehow knew that you wanted to be with him....And it didn’t matter that you had sweated out your press and curl while doing the whole routine from House Party with your homegirls, ‘cause back then, all that mattered was having fun. We would dance....Ooohhh we would dance ! and he was trying not to get too close, but we could always feel their little baby hard-ons through their jeans, and we would giggle and make faces at our friends....
(MUSIC: Jamie Foxx - “Fall For Your Type”)
2: He’s all grown up now. None of the pimply akwardness of adolescence but he’s still working on keeping his man (indicates groin) in check.
1: …Yeah…and you’re dancing with him, the guy you’ve been checkin all night….He’s
dancing with you like that’s exactly what he is supposed to be doing with his life right at that moment…There is a comfortable place in the music and in his embrace…The public becomes so private…This is an escape that can only be explained on the dancefloor…the two of you sweating and dancing for so long, and he’s still right there with you. There is something that happens within music…music can make you forget or music can make you remember…music makes things happen…something happens to me when I hear music……
2/3:
music was everywhere
but you were the only voice
calling me out of hiding
I danced with you once in a dream
We floated on the tongue of the wind
and rested in the petals of fresh cut flowers…
3: music sweet music….i wish I could caress and kiss…I know how jimi felt….but right now it is dark and hot and I am dancing with the man I have been waiting to meet every time I come out….He’s catching everything I am throwing at him and pulling me closer for more….I am so close to him…. I don’t even know his name…But names are not important after all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet….A rose by any other name would still be my freak…All I needed to know is that he feels good….His sweat smells good….There’s something about the music….I am thinking about taking him home with me...he feels good….It is just dark enough in here, that I don’t mind that he’s kissing on my neck…or that i’m kissing on his.
1: My lover’s neck is delicious
Smelling him makes me hungry
2: Hungry for frijoles con carne
Tortillas frescos
1: He is delicious
3: Crème brule
1: Freshly baked bread
Spicy Sweet 10 different tastes all making me so hungry for him
3: Sweet vidalia onions
4: Powerfully pungent pepperjack cheese
1: He is well cooked meat that falls from the bone
He is fowl flavored only by the air he fell from
Delightful delectable deliciously divine
Sensously savourable
Juicy fuzzy georgia peaches
Homegrown peach fuzz
4: Sugar cane and ackee
Fish fried fresh from a jubilee
1: You can taste the gulf’s salt in his sweat
3: He is king cake cut up for mardi gras
He is tangy cranberries that stung my tongue
2: He is that margarita that made my head spun round
Spun sugar rolls toasted roasted cinnamon man of ginger
1: Fingertips gingerly sprinkle the tips of my tongue as it savours al of the flavours that my lover is. fresh mint sent to whole wheat
2: Whipped butter
4: Whipped lover
3: Whipped cream
1: Creamy vats of caramelly fudge
He is delicious
My last supper and early repast
Past the ettiquitte of which fork to use
This meal requires all of them and none
4: So hungry am I that I often miss my mouth
Singing for his strawberries like the peddler in Porgy and Bess
He is the best
2: Paprika oregano cayenne pepper cilantro curry jerk old bay confectioner’s sugar for my sugar
to raw brown sugar to whisky to wine
sands of the beach straight to the grape vine
1: All of the places where I eat from my lover’s spine
Barefoot on the porch slurping salty tomatoes
Peeling pineapples ‘til the roof of my mouth is raw
Devour the picnic of my lover’s neck
All 4: My lover’s neck is delicious.
(the “dance” continues through this monologue)
2 : oooohh…I don’t mind what anyone has to say about how I am dancing and embracing him with my dance since he is doing the exact same thing to me….there are hands….his hands and my hands…ummm…and I feel sooo good…(lights/music begin to fade out) umm he feels sooo good…and nothing matters but the music….the music calling me out of hiding….as we float to a place where names don’t even matter and the music makes everything between us…just between us…..oooh….unh….
1: He feels good..... (woman 2 moans)
3: It’s just dark enough in here..... (moan)
4 : I’m thinking of taking him home with me....
(moans increase to climax/ ending lights blackout. Cut music.)
1: (Abruptly, interrupting) We never used anything.
2: Shoulda stayed a virgin. MUSIC: A Tribe Called Quest “Bonita Applebum”
4: What ?
3: Shoulda stayed a virgin.
2: I don’t know how people do it. Sometimes I wonder how they do it…start so young…having babies....Getting married.
4: Married ?
3: I was close... I was!
1: Once I almost had a baby,
3: Once I almost got married.
1: Didn’t know I was pregnant...
3: Damn sure didn’t know I was engaged...Lost him though...he didn’t die or anything like that…I just lost him….like keys or something. You know how when you get a new set of keys, like to a new car or something you don’t let them out of your sight. You play with them like your nuts, but after a while, the novelty wears off.
1: You get tired of driving.
3: You begin ot misplace them. Not because you mean to. Not because you really want to… it just happens
1: You begin to take them for granted.
3: You begin to not worry about what time they’ll show up. Before you know it, they’re lost. Tell yourself they’ll turn up eventually. Tell yourself this is only temporary. Tell yourself he’ll call back.
4: But they never do.
3: So, you lost them.
2: Shoulda stayed a virgin. I thought I was pregnant once.
All : (adlib) What? When?
2: I did. I just got paid. Since I’d already paid my bills for the month, I decided that it was time for me to splurge. So…I went and got pierced!
3: Naw Unh! You ?!
1: Where?
2: (woman 2 turns to other women and opens/lifts her shirt like a flasher) I went and got both of my nipples pierced. I decided to clean myself up and mark on the calendar when I would be able to show them off without pain. It was then that I noticed the absence of markings on my calendar. There were no little marks to indicate that the goddess had been here. The goddess had not been in bloom. No little marks. No little flowers. Nothing. No matter. I knew there was nothing to be worried about. But I wanted to make sure. After all, better safe than sorry.
MUSIC: Muppets – “Mahna, Mahna”
I walked swiftly down one block and two blocks ovre to the drug store. Like the girl in
rasberry beret, «I walked in through the out door out door.» I wore no beret. Only tiny
beads of sweat that collected underneath my newly pierced breasts. I walked through the store wondering why it was that the pharmacy always had to be at the back of the store. It seems that they would want to keep the flow of sick people quarantined to the front of the store so as not to infect the rest of the public. But then, from a capitalist point of view, I guess the more people infected, the more drugs they sell and then all the snotty little clerks staring down at us from their measly foot elevation could make up for other phallic phalacies at the bar later in the week from all the money they’d pulled from the wallets of those of us unfortunate enough to be infected while merely trying to check on our reproductive health…..did any of that make sense ?
ALL: HELL NO ! ! !
4 : Were you pregnant or not ?
2 : I walked home faster than I had walked to the store. Clutching that bag that I had double wrapped to try and conceal the contents. Clutching the bag even tighter once I realized that my hand bore no ring on the fourth finger. There was no ring on my finger on my hand that held the answer to how the next months of my life were going to be. Despite my then progressive and assertive nature, the fear of the stigma to come, a shotgun wedding or accidental baby momma drama, was one I did not want and had been trying to avoid. I hadn’t remembered needing to pee this bad.
3: Were you pregnant or not ?
2: Once I got inside, I tried to open the package. You’d think they would make these things easier to get into. I saw the scissors on the dresser and thought of cutting the box open. I was scared that I would hurt the contents, so I didn’t do it. I kept struggling to open it. Once I got it open, I felt like I do when I drink too much and have to go to the bathroom with an unimaginable urgency.
1: Oh Lord! Were you pregnant?!!!
2: I balanced and held the stick like I was supposed to…and I waited…. I waited and almost screamed when I thought I saw the screen turning pink…
ALL : OH NO!!!
4: Were you pregnant ?
2: …No......
ALL : Thank God ! !
2 : two hours later I was still drinking vodka after writing it all down… I guess I was
partying…celebrating my luck and the guardian angel that was looking out for me and my mistakes….damn this vodka was good…. Should have stayed a virgin.
1: I wasn’t so lucky… we never used anything. (begins singing)
sometimes, I feel like a motherless child,
sometimes, I feel like a motherless child,
sometimes, I feel like a motherless child,
a long way from home.
I remember being someone’s mother
For the spilt second it took for me to realize I was one.
Split second
Coming and going
going
going
My child is gone
Pro anti choice life
My choice was made for me long too soon :
I never knew
I never even thought
Split second decisions robbed me of my anti pro choice
Life
I could not stop crying
Tears fell bloody from my womb
Reaching in(to the toilet) to cradle it for that one moment
one moment too late
(sings)
hush little baby don’t say a word
hush little baby cant say a word
little baby cant say anything
with a mouth gone
mother child me
I remember being someone’s mother
I was gonna be someone’s mother
but I couldn’t hold on long enough
but I couldn’t hold on hard enough
(sings) sometimes I feel like a motherless child
mothers child motherless child
sometimes I hear my motherless child cry
I watch others bellies grow while mine lays flat
barren land on earth that once was fecund
never to hear me applaud at recitals
never to hear me cheer at the games
never to chastise for coming home too late :
(sings)
hush little baby don’t you cry
mommas gonna buy
momma would buy a world of mocking birds diamond rings
and
whatever other verses there were that I cant remember
but I do remember
everyday I remember
(sings) sometimes I feel....
3: Sick. I am sick. I knew that there was something wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. My stomach hurt for three weeks and I had no idea what the cause was…I kept thinking to myself that whatever it was, cramps, gas, whatever... would pass(no pun intended) and everything would be alright. I kept thinking that it would be fine. I got a phone call one morning. It was my pediatrician’s office.
1: Pediatrician ?
2: There is nothing wrong with a grown woman still going to her pediatrician. Going to my pediatrician is familiar…it is safe…I feel like I can still be a little girl…
3: the phone was ringing. It was my pediatrician.
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: We need you to come back into the office.
3: Why, is there something wrong ?
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: It appears you have an abnormal pap smear.
3: What does that mean? Is it serious?
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: We are not at liberty to discus this over the phone young lady, when can you come in.
3: «We are not at liberty to discus this over the phone? Abnormal?» What do you say to that? How do you respond that your pediatrician who has been treating you since you were a little girl has abnormal pap smear results for you… I went directly after school that day…2 shots in my ass, severe exhaustion, embarassment, slight nausea, and I am fine now….sailing away on clouds of cognac and Pepsi not allowing any close to me for fear that if they get too close then they will see the scars that have not yet healed.
SOUND CUE:
MUSIC: Notorious B.I.G. “One More Chance”
4: Did I ever tell you about that time I had to take the morning after pill? Well, actually it was THOSE times I had to take the morning after pill….twice….in one month.
1: Morning after pill? You mean like Plan B?
4: Chile mine was Plan B & C apparently.
2: Damn girl! Twice in one month?
3: Don’t you know that the more you take it, the less it works?
2: Girl! Why were you being so reckless!?
4: I wasn’t being reckless. The condom….I mean CONDOMS broke. We felt one and stopped to fix it….but then the backup broke too.
2: ConDOMS broke? What kind of boudoir acrobatics were y’all doing? I’m gonna need you two to slow it down and get a little more vanilla.
4: Meh… Who wants vanilla when you can have va-va-VOOM! AAAAOOOOOWWWW
(All laugh)
4: Anyway, yes, I had to take it twice in one month. Chile, I was alllll up on those
innanets researching the damage I was certain I was doing to my reproductive
health. Me and dude had JUST started doing the bedroom boogie and he was
AAAAAHHHMAAAAYZZZINNNGG….We were AAAAAHHHMAAAAYZZZINNNGG!!!!
2: Girl, were those side effects AAAAAHHHMAAAAYZZZINNNGG too?
3: Don’t get ugly….God don’t like ugly…
1: ….And he ain’t too fond of cute either.
4: No. The side effects were far from AAAAAHHHMAAAAYZZZINNNGG…. But we were
really, REALLY new and he was completely new to my world. I didn’t want to be the after school special chick, but I also didn’t wanna be chica who has “medical issues” to explain to whoever comes next. So I popped the morning after pill and popped into my doctor’s office to get my blood work done. I also knew I was going to have to demand that he get tested too. I’d never done that before.
1: I hate going to the doctor’s office. I always think that I would rather wait until I keel over dead as opposed to have to wait for test results….nowadays people can purchase entire new faces and bodies, but the medical bureacracy has JUST recently been able to get rapid results for your tests.
3 : I hate waiting. Especially for that test. They tell you that when you change partners you They tell you that when you change partners you should get one every 6 months, but that that one is only good for things that happened up to 6 months before your test date.. so if you got caught slipping a few days before your test, you gotta wait another 6 months to find out if you’re in the clear.
2 : You’d think that that would scare folks into monogamy…
1 : shit, I should be so lucky! I waited for the whole two weeks once…but that was only because no one told me that you could get rapid results and your returns would be back in under an hour….1 hour versus two weeks… that shit is crazy.
3: I had a headache that lasted on and off for two years. I wanted a doctor that fit in my insurance. My pediatrician recommended this one cat at a hospital near my father’s house. I am already afraid since a friend of mine’s sister had just passed from an aneurism…I of course have been terrified for the few weeks that I was home trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my head. As a rule I do not like going to male doctors. There is something extra vulnerable about knowing that you are ill and having to deal with the discomfort of a strange man touching your body….looking at your body…and here you don’t know what’s wrong with your body… i dunno…it is always hard for me not to feel violated or uncomfortable on some level. To make matters worse, this man’s bedside manner was pretty one track, and that track was leading to his bedroom in a manner unsuitable to a young scared girl. I was scared. I was hurting. I wondered if it really made sense to save money if I had to pay with my pride.
4: He said things to me.
1: He touched me…
2: He asked me questions about my personal life…
3: All the while he was dangling the catscan and exray of my skull in front of me allowing the terror of death to lull me into a state of submission…..
4: I had to answer everything he asked me….
1: I had to oblige with what he said.
2: I had to do what he wanted.
3: My head was killing me.
1: I could barely see straight.
3: I didn’t want to upset the man who was going to make my head stop hurting…
:4 I didn’t want to question him….
3: I just answered and took my brother with me to the office every time after that.
MUSIC: Hi Tek “Round & Round”
(girls adlib about « little brother » and pull a young man from the audience and sit him center stage)
2: He is always so warm. Even with the air on he’s warm. I like to feel how smooth and warm his skin is first thing in the morning with one hand in his hair like duck feathers. I love to feel the little feathers curl around my fingers. I want to put my toes in his hair. He hates it when I do that. But I am the big sister and I get to do what I want. I try to show him my book, and he squints since he hates wearing his glasses. So I pinch him with my toes which he hates more than wearing his glasses and almost as much as when I take out his braids and put my feet in his hair. But he’s got to grin and take it, or growl and fake it. When he snaps at me, I hit him even if I am the one being the pest.
4: He’s not littler than me anymore. He is much bigger, but I taught him how to read and how to ride a bike. I made him not scared when we took his training wheels off and he fell down a buncha times and sometimes he mispronounced the words…but I made him get back up and try again so he could feel big inside. He is still such a baby. Such a little boy. He’s so strange. So smart to be so young. His tastes are sooo varied. I feel like I kinda had something to do with that. I am the big sister.
3: When he’s sleeping, I go and smell his baby spot. The spot right behind his ear where it always smells sweet. I cover for him when he comes home drunk or high. Spraying him with smell goods and sneaking all chances to play in his loooooong hair. He’s not so little anymore. 6’3”, but he still likes to try and curl up in my lap like a really BIG cat. When he climbs up in my lap, I pull his duck feathers into ponytails just to see him make faces
2&3: AND
2: I make him shave because I tell him his whiskers look like two pussies on either side of his face. I know he’s just trying to look grown, but I am the big sister, so I am the boss, and he always feels better when I shave him. He has whiskers! I used to carry him around and pretend like he was my baby (like anyone would believe me at six with my skinny legs and knobby knees!) and he’s got WHISKERS! But I always shave him because I like his little-big face smooth. So while he’s sleeping, I take his
hair a loose, snuggle with him, give him 10,000 kisses and then, I pull his hair.
MUSIC: MIA “Bad Girls”
1 : Girl what is it?
2 : You makin’ it a little too obvious you want us to ask you...
4 : you may as well go on and tell us. What has got you all smiles like that ?
3 : He smelled like trees. I smelled like vodka. It only seemed natural we'd sit next to each other. He looked so much like a man I used to love. Jill Scott was on my ipod crooning about having something better at home as I snuck glances out of the corner of my eye. He had locks and his arms were covered in ink. Clearly he blazed. That combo is like catnip to me, though I'm far too old to still fancy such childish things. Some girls get moist from stock portfolios and degrees. Aesthetics delight me so much more.
Maybe it was the vodka in my veins or maybe it was the length of time since the last time I'd had company. Whatever it was, he made my heartbeat quicken. My iPod switched to NORE "Superthug" and I couldn't resist. I swung a leg across his lap and looked at him as if I dared him to do something about it. There was a seat between us.
He slid closer closing the gap.
I was sure my mouth tasted like a still and that his tasted like a blunt wrapper, but I didn't care. I splayed my fingers at the base of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. We were tongue wrestling on the green line & I didn't care who saw.
His hand slid up my bare legs and the tips of his fingers danced under the hem of my too-short- for-the-train-shorts. His mouth was all I thought it would be and then some. Our tongues were wrestling with one another violently trying to dominate each other. The kiss was all I wanted and then some.
We pulled into the Gallery Place station. I pulled out of his kiss, stood and straightened my shorts. He looked at me as though suffocating. Confused.
A kiss from him was all I wanted.
A kiss from him was all I needed.
I walked towards the door, looked over my shoulder, and NORE played on.
"Hit 'em."
I stepped onto the platform smiling as I walked away to my connecting train. If he followed....
I heard the signal that the doors were closing and I waited w/my back to where I'd left my train tease.
The doors closed and I was still standing on the platform alone. The iPod shuffled again. I smiled and boarded my connection. (music fades out)
MUSIC : Lauryn Hill- “Sweetest Thing (Instrumental) Woman 4 begins dancing smiling
2: Now you too? Go on and spill it.
4 : The most beautiful man that I have met in DC was at my house this morning. He was beauty incarnate. Eyes, mouth, neck, fingers…so gentle, yet able to find and fix my pressure points. I couldn’t help but to stare, and all I kept thinking was how much he looked like a black jesus. Not the one that that white woman painted and displayed in Jet magazine. He looked like the real thing. Like if he walked into a church wearng a white robe and sandals, people would actually turn from the pulpit and follow him wherever he told them to. Then I realized it was cliché to say that he looked like a black jesus…he looked like black heaven to me and all I could think about was how the sins I was thinking of commiting with black heaven would certainly keep me out of heaven. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to get into heaven, but I certainly knew that I wanted to let black heaven inside me…but of course it was too soon….
He had locks that were as long as my legs….i wondered how they would feel on my thighs. He pushed them here and there struggling to see through the bars they created around his face. They swept past me as he tried in vain to tame that untameable shock of locks. I love locks. I blame Me’Shell N’degeocello. Ever since I was younger and learned all the words to that song of hers. (sings) « Let me run my fingers through your dread locks… and rub your body down…. » Black/Brown vines that dangle from their skulls. Locks. Dreadlocks, though I’ve been told not to call them dreads. Nothing dreaded about all that hair. Love putting my hands in and feeling the years as my hands slide down. Like long rings of a tree stretched out. Fighting with them on the pillows as they each try and kiss me goodnight. Something so innate and reminiscent of other lifetimes when more of the men I loved donned them….I can’t keep my hands out of
them. Twilring them between my fingers tickling his ears with them when he won’t listen. the kinky smoothness that both scratches and caresses my skin wherever they fall on me.. Each one stroking me and me adoring every minute…I tied them in knots…I grabbed them by the handfuls….I buried my face in his scalp…
The sun was just coming up and black heaven surrounded me… fingers interlocked in that glorious mane and our lips savoring each other like starving people finally fed…enjoying his mouth like it was mine and mine as if it was his… I gave him my whole mouth and he took it eagerly offering me his in return…. those eyes did not change nor flicker for one instant...I felt embarrassed to be visually devoured the way he was looking at me almost as if i was unworthy of his gaze let alone his company…he with that hair that both freed him from convention and encarcerated him to a lifetime of asinine questions from people who would never understand. I felt as though I needed a head full of curls for him to loose those delicate fingers in. a head of hair that would validate and echo his beautiful work of dedication and devotion. Instead, I lay there a near gringa with freshly straightened hair, bright red against my springtime DC tan. Those eyes could see my thoughts.
He could see my thoughts and ignored/erased my woe. Heaven opened his arms and wrapped me in them. My body locked with his in a position both familiar and comfortable to two people so new to each other. He laid his crown upon my chest. Our breathing and heartbeats mimicked each other’s. within minutes…we were asleep. (MUSIC fades out)
2: SO ? !
4: What do you mean so ?
2: So what happened ?
4: Nothing…we fell asleep. (shifts uncomfortably)
3: You mean after all of that «i can’t keep my hands out of them» and «he laid his crown» he didn’t LAY IT DOWN?!
1: Why you gotta be so nasty all the time ?
3: It doesn’t make me nasty to want to hear a good story…there’s gotta be some reason that nothing happened.
4 : he’s married.
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: This isn’t going to work. I ‘m not being fair to anybody. I’m sure you hate me now, but if I did come over now, you’d hate me more. SHE just came over here, crying. I can’t leave her like this. I hope you didn’t go through too much trouble. You probably won’t speak to me again…I’d understand.
MUSIC : Jazmine Sullivan “Bust Your Windows (Instrumental)”
1,2&3: WHAT?!
3: see I knew there was more about Black Jesus than you were telling us…
2: what are you doing with an involved man?
1: be nice… we all make mistakes.
3: yeah but her mistake is one that has affected the rest of us on the other end.
4: and wasn’t no one thinking about my poor little feelings when my man was stepping out.
2: so that doesn’t make it acceptable or okay.
4: why not?
3: (interrupts)….and when was the last time you had a man? (all women laugh)
4: apparently I wasn’t doing something right…My man was missing something and that’s why he went elsewhere….Black Jesus is missing something…and that’s why he was at my crib this morning.
2: AND left your crib this morning!
3: what time did he leave?
4 : 5.
2: 5? Are you even listening to yourself? Who you know with some business at 5am on a Sunday morning? You know his ass wasn’t going to church! He’s rushing home to go check in and here you are with bags under your eyes and nothing to show for it! Have you ever seen him during the day? Have you ever been out on a date? (Cut music)
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: You honestly don’t deserve this, any of it. I think you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, but the situation is what it is. I feel really bad about what I am doing to you and to her.
2: look at what we’ve grown accustomed to! Once upon a time we wouldn’t even tolerate our men holding hands with other women…and now look! Y’all remember that old song? (sings) “I’ll be the other woman…but I’ve got to know, that I’m the only other woman, you’re making love to…”
SOUND CUE
HIS VOICE: I’m sitting here supposed to be comforting her, and all I can think of is how she’s keeping me from seeing you. How fucked up is that ? Do you hate me, really dislike me, or just don’t care anymore? I’m scared to call you.
2: We have grades and conditions for cheating! Levels of what we will put up with. Kissing someone else is forgivable….
3: but sleeping with someone else is not….
4: sometimes…
2: But then we even have clauses and loopholes in our mental contracts…
3: it’s okay if he fucks someone else…as long as he does it only once, used a condom, and he treated her like a whore immediately afterwards.
1: That validates our place as his heart and shows that he was just weak and fell victim to his carnal nature…
2: But once he starts fusing some sort of relationship with her....
3: (interrupts) translation: constantly fucking her, and/or spending nights, holidays aka serious quality time with her...
2 : (resumes) Then we get offended! Then we begin to try and jump bad!
1 : (melodramatically with mock tears) How DARE you sleep with someone else ….
2 : (in the same voice as 3) 7 times!
3 : How could you take her kids to Chuck E Cheese!? The zoo would have been one thing…
1 : The Zoo is free…But to Chuck E Cheese?!
1&3 : You spent some money!!! (1 &3 burst into laughter. 4 laughs slightly, but is clearly disturbed by what 2 is saying)
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: You know, sometimes I have to question myself....do I really love you? If I did, would I hold on as long as I can? Would I be only with you?
1: Every year we claim to be raising our standards...
4: (interjects) Standards?
1: (continues) ....making the same new year’s resolution that this year we swear to keep…
3: but we make the same one every year!
1: We need to start drawing the lines with permanent ink instead of all this pencil we’ve been using.
3: Fuck that…we need to have that shit tatted on our arm or something…..
4: Standards are a luxury I can’t afford right now. Standards are for people with options. Okay?
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: Or would it be real love if I let you go? Can I love someone I constantly, knowingly hurt? Or do I hurt you because I love you and can’t let go?
2: Look, it’s not exactly like I got a line at my door or a list of messages waiting for me at
home...
1: (interjects) I hear that!
2: (continues) ....but I still won’t accept certain things.
3: I see now how some of these older women end up with the DRAMA they end up with….
4: (looking in the mirror at herself) Alls fair in love and war and pickings sho’ do get slim
as time and life wears on….and with a body like this, it just ain’t fair to the rest of them out there…. This ought to be illegal. (women laugh)
2: It ought to be illegal for you to be as silly as you are….lettin some pretty dude with a a wife get you as open as you are.. It’s bullshit like this that has made me stay out of the game for as long as I have….(adlib mumbles to herself while digging through her bag to find something)
1: (cuts her off) Calm down girl….it’s not that bad is it ?
2: Yeah it is that bad…that’s why I’ve been by myself for this long.
3: Damn ! you still ain’t had none ?
1: You are so nasty!
2: I prefer to say that I am fasting.
4: Well yo’ ass has damn near starved to death! What are you waiting for ?
2: I am waiting for the good story…I am waiting for my own most beautiful man in DC. Not the all-the-time-most-beautiful-sometimes-mine-man in DC. I am waiting for the cat that is gonna make me think of him when I know I have other things to do…I’m waiting for my happily ever after..
3: Jump off your high horse…You know that if a dude was trying to holla and he had a woman you’d still kick it with him…
2: No I wouldn’t. I don’t want anybody to be able to sleep late with the man I am sleeping with. Not just love him in the wee hours of the night and let him out on dawn’s breath and pretend that it doesn’t bother me.
4: (interupts) Y’all it’s not like I meant to do this…I didn’t know about her….He actually told me that he was single…
3: So he’s a liar and a cheat?
2: That’s special. He certainly sounds like a keeper.
1: Maybe she’s just passing time…let her be…(mumbles to 4) glass houses and all....
2: Excuse me?! And just what the hell is that supposed to mean ?
1 : Just that you shouldn’t throw stones.
2: When have I ever been involved with an involved man ?
1 : Never…but you did cheat before.
2: That wasn’t cheating.
All three other women : And why not?
2: I only thought about it. Besides, I am a woman….we are generally flawless….he is a
man….his actions are guilty until proven innocent. (the other three women fall out laughing….)
1: How could you even say that with a straight face ?
SOUND CUE:
MUSIC: The Roots – “You’ve Got Me (Instrumental)”
2: It was different. My love was far, far away from me and I was very very lonely….I had
gotten spoiled...I wanted to be with him more than I wanted breath in my body. I loved
him so completely. I loved him so entirely. After all these years, I still don’t know where he ends and where I begin.....He was too far away…I didn’t love him….The other « him »… I just…I wanted to be held.
People don’t appreciate how important a little caress can be. How significant and important it is to be touched…For a while, I was just sleeping with guys hoping that they would stay around long enough afterwards to hold me…That was all I wanted. I want the man who is gonna lay there afterwards and hold me…The one who looks at me as if I was all that he ever needed to live off of…HE used to look at me like that…Like all he needed was me and sunshine…..I want the man who is going to just walk up to me and put his arms around me from behind just because…. (music fades)
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: I thought of you today. I went to my friend’s restaurant (it’s Asian fusion) and I remember how excited you were when you learned how to make wontons. Remember? You made them for me but I had to work late, so you called me all hyped to tell me about the recipe. We didn’t talk long that night.
SOUND CUE:
MUSIC: Deborah Cox - “We Can’t Be Friends (Instrumental)”
3: It's funny the things you remember that I thought you hadn't paid attention to. I can't stand that about him. He'll spring some stuff on me when I least expect it and show that
he was listening all along. If he was listening all along, why not act like it? I'm literally shaking my head right now 'Cause it's so tired. I'm so fatigued of old men and their old men bullshit. I know people can only hear/say/feel/what they're ready to hear/say/feel but dang! Why is he ONLY ever ready to hear/say/feel what I need when I've washed my hands of him? Beyond the distance between us we would never work for THAT reason. He's never what I need him to be when I need him to be it. Seriously....I'm sorry it took me soooo long to realize. But I can see it now. He's only emotive when he thinks I'm about to evaporate into memories. I can't be in a relationship with someone with whom I must constantly seem at the precipice of abandoning in order to feel appreciated and cherished. I love an adventure just as much as the next chica, but this is one I shall no longer choose. Just think of how exhausting it is to love someone who only acts how you know love to be when they think they've lost you.
MUSIC: Chris Brown- “Deuces (Instrumental)”
4 : time passes watchin’ fellas clockin’ asses
ignoring the despair of sorrowful glances
walking quick to avoid their b-boy stances
make no apologies for the scars on my knees
can’t help but please yet dodge disease
strugglin for the keys that will help me escape
my fate of mental rape
still can’t contemplate what to do without you
now dismissed without a « thank you miss »
bliss
2 : ______________interrupted
corrupted happiness now sleeps with abducted dreams
I shoulda been less open to the scheme
my king
not live as a fiend begging for you to stay within my limbs
promising each one after you that I am over him
DAMN SLIM!
Shouldn’ta let you in
Once my lover, now my friend
For you, I feign a grin
and sin as my hips spin in stretch denim
wishing for a life that can’t begin
without letting go
never been no man’s ho ‘til I was yours
close doors on opportunity
as I wait for you to come home to me…..
3: Now I’m on your back like that monkey
Or more like a gorilla
I feel ya even though you tried to skunk me
Funky cold medina
Should have seen yo’ face when I rolled in the crib
Woulda caught an under the jail-bid for what I was thinking of doing to your ass
Class?
You displayed none hun as you slutted out your bun bun
And forgot that I was supposed to be your only one…
Son we’re done.
Caught you in the crib like shaggy and now you wanna get aggy hollerin that
“it wasn’t me”
see, I saw you
I caught you screwin’ her and I wasn’t even mad,
My bad
Packed up my shit
Now I’m a bag lady like Badu
knew we were through
but you coulda had the decency
to keep me from seeing what I was forced to see
now you’re down on one knee asking for forgiveness
begging me not to end this
but it was just my ‘magination
to believe your machinations
and run away with me
I sing as I pluck my own strings
melodies for which weak ones fiend
and mortal men dream of having the opportunity to even fathom screwing me
but they bring the wrong tools,
fools.
Took free classes at home depot
Still never learned
why it is I left your dumb ass spurned
1: Expected me to be tame,
As if you could separate phoenix from the flame
And stay the same while I constantly change,
You’re left lame
Crippled and blinded by the remains I left behinded
my behind been divine before I let you arch my spine
whether butt ass naked or rockin’ Calvin Kline’s
All 4: I’M STILL SUBLIME!
(music cuts out)
1: They cut me open and they didn’t even need to. I have a scar that juts down my belly and I didn’t need to have it….They claimed that my labor would have been too difficult….Too much of a strain… I have a jagged smile across my stomach, the same stomach I used to flaunt and entice with accenting the golden hairs that danced out against my brown skin.
4: Too difficult…
1 : The stomach I had tattooed to accent the toneness and smoothness of it…..They cut me open and claimed it was to save my child…..My baby didn’t need that. I didn’t need that…
3: Too much trouble…
1 : Now I am scarred because my insurance would cover it. It would be paid for and easier for them. Far be it for the men in scrubs to work for the money they were sure to make….Far be it for them to have to exert any labor to ensure that mine was safe….I felt every jagged point of the knife rip across my stomach. They cut me open and they didn’t even need to.
I wanted to get up and walk away.
Surely my baby was safer inside me than in the hands of these scalpel weilding fiends. I felt it was wrong as they did it, but I didn’t argue…I felt them reaching inside me and pulling him out….
The men in scrubs always know best….
4: Never question them.
1 : The heavens speak through them to force the smile that my belly now is. This is 2012. The new millenium. I live in America! I have insurance! Women in America in 2012 don’t die in childbirth. Children in America in 2012 shouldn’t die in childbirth. Children in America don’t die….in childbirth. Do they? How do children die in childbirth…today? anywhere? I have insurance….I had insurance…Cutting corners to save them time. Cutting me. I thought they knew best…My smile smiled up at them from the table.. I lost him.
MUSIC : Kanye West – “Power (Instrumental)”
3: Can’t be defined by weak lines with no reason
2: Off with your head for this treason!
‘tis the season to re-educate inflated egos
of dated late hoes like you and your brethren
who I did great favors by letting in my personal pow-wow.
3: You thought I would be broken now?
Wonder how you expected me to kow tow,
Bow down and be humble’an’
Bumblin’ idiot
Mumblin’ griot
Shhhhiiiiitttt!
My presence makes grown men rumble and feel it
Richter scale pales in comparison
To this wrath of mine you’ve incurred again
1: Dream deferred again
Step into the tiger’s den,
Learn your lesson.
Thought you could use that to force me into places I didn’t belong?
Didn’t know I’d already sung this song and come back strong
Long time comin’…
3: Loved you even when you were strummin’ someone else’s strings
Stings don’t it?
Rings won’t get you back in my good graces
Better off searching for traces of me left on nasty sheets
Greet me with faces when you see me in public spaces
Where we used to meet
Shuffling your feet and shifting in your seat
Because your place has been replaced my sweet
Felt your eyes follow me as I walked up the street
Go home, beat your meat let someone else chugalug on your skeet-skeet.
2: I am just an earth-angel bound to purgatory’s pavement
Tightening my bonds as I try to cut them loose lips tell of
All those who attempted to buy me off the auction block with a stiff cock
As if that’s all I needed to get by
I-I am so tired of the feeble attempts of unskilled gents
who don’t know that I need to be handled gently
Rent me if you wanna
But I cost too much to own up to all that I got to give….
4: SHIT!
Can I live without you trying to play me,
slay me with kind words and cognac kisses?
Borrowing time from your misses to come lay with me your mistress
Existed before the twist of my hips made you lisp
2: And all jokes aside,
You knew you couldn’t handle this
Your public secret causing you private distress.
1: I’m callin this my cypher
‘cause I’m trying to decipher
what it is you’re trying to stifle in me
envy must be what has kept
me from thee and thee from me
and has kept this distance between us
3: trust that I could have forgiven you
if I hadn’t seen you
if I hadn’t seen you
with her
and you know I can’t even be mad
we had what we had
we had what we had
we had what we had
4: I’m not mad that you did it
I’m mad that I caught you
Thought you would remember
those long days in September
when I wrapped my legs around your heart
no need to start arguing
I believed it was your heart
Since you fall in love so freely
You give your heart so easily that it must be
what laid between my thighs
lies if you try and tell me otherwise,
but I found the truth when I spied you like a broke sleuth
you weren’t even fly enough to cover your tracks,
1: broke my back to try and be there for you
4: kept it going even when I felt it was wack
1: I can’t even be mad
we had what we had
we had what we had
3: if I hadn’t seen you
if I hadn’t seen you with her….
(Woman 3 begins to dial cell phone.)
4 : Rockin’ locs not even knowing what you’re dreadin
you’re headin for disater
‘cause the fast life is moving faster
before you know it,
you’re casper,
a ghost who plays host
to all the couldas shouldas and wouldas
you shoulda been
2 : for you doing the right thing was more like a sin
sick of your apologies always sounding like whimpering
I’m not your damn priest and this is not your fuckin confession
So stop blessin me with curses
Forcing me to spit verses I never wanted to spit to you
Thinking I must be dreamin ‘cause I never thought we’d be through
4: True
But we’ve had more transitions then michael bivins
I’m changing my station
Keepin up with you is no longer my occupation
and with this I’m deadin this deadend relation-ship…whut ?
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE : Waddup. I can’t take your call…leave a message…BEEEEEEP…Na um just playin’. One.
3 : Okay so I am drunk…right now, but I wasn’t when I saw you in her embrace. Was the injury done by the action, or by the face that I lost as a result. The worst part is I let you in. I wasn’t supposed to be letting anyone in. I made a decision the last time I had to write something like this. I was R Kelly’s “Woman Fed Up, » though only in empathy since r&b thugs aren’t really my style. You weren’t a r&b thug. You were a father’s only son, heir to all apparent and the mentality to go with it. We were both merely conquests in your quest for your already heavy belt so borne with holes that wraps round and round your slender waist. I wanted to be the last notch if I had to be one at all. I didn’t want to be reminded of the one’s before me. I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t want to see you with them. I saw you kissing her no more than twenty minutes after I’d just tasted your lips. I wish I had said something. I wanted to say something. I wanted to do something. But I couldn’t manage a scene that late at night.
1 : Right now, I’m trashed but I wasn’t earlier. Did you know that I almost misbehaved
yesterday. The most beautiful man in DC (my most beautiful man in DC) wanted to get lost with me somewhere and I followed him part of the way. I followed him part of the
way, but stopped because I was thinking about you. I have had ten million fantasies about him and all the things I would do to every inch of his body. Every single molecule of flesh on his person were mine for the taking in my mind… But I stopped following him for you and the possibility of what we were on our way to be.
3 : I stopped following to turn and find you as I did, I stopped following to be humiliated as you placed my worth on the scale of everyone’s eyes. Showing that I weighed and meant nothing to you. I was tumbled off the pedastle that you pretended to place me on.
1 : I couldn’t let my jaw drop. I couldn’t even acknowledge that you existed. After all I didn’t. I didn’t exist and neither did what we’d done just this morning. I didn’t mean a thing to you. So you no longer mean anything to me.
SOUND CUE:
MUSIC: Drake– Crew Love (Instrumental)
4: Right now, I am bent, but I wasn’t as I traveled through a couple of boroughs by gypsy cab to visit the most beautiful man in New York. I laid with him for hours and you did not exist, as I had not existed. I laid with him for hours. For those hours I was the most beautiful woman in the World. I felt in his arms all the things that I never thought with you. He and I were two puzzle pieces fitting together like legos in ways I only feigned with you. He stared at me he took me in … he cared about me more than I cared about thinking about you anymore.
2: I am a little bit drunk right now, but I wasn’t when I realized that I had never laid with a man who was exactly what I imagined he would be. My imagined was realized in the flesh. In his flesh. In my flesh. I had songs and he could hear them. He could smell them in the chanting of my skin. He could hear my words in the beating of my heart. I spoke to him without having to open my mouth; he read my breath and memorized my thoughts, without invitation, for he really only needs my mouth open to kiss.
1: I’d rather drink liquor than talk to you about things you don’t even care about. You don’t care about my classes. You laugh at my friends. You laugh at my interests. You probably will never even hear this since you don’t even know I write. I would rather drink liquor than argue with you anymore. I would rather drink liquor than pretend I am satisfied after being disappointed; not smoking in bed since you quit even if I’d really like a fucking cigarette. There are things important to me and I have no other way of talking about them rather than telling you “never mind” when you ask.
3: You won’t listen and I’ll just go and fuck someone else to forget about you one more
time…..one more time is all I have left…why bother keeping you around if I am relying on others to satisfy me?
2: I am slightly tipsy right now, but I never thought of having to get off through just talking with someone. That is how stagnant the situation is, I can’t even talk to you because we never speak the same language. My language is poetry and emotions. You speak English. Literal, boring English. I speak moans and sighs. You speak solutions and resolutions. I speak a sense of comfort. You speak formally. I speak the sweat that falls from your brow when you look at me and tell me I am beautiful. I speak the way your eyes looked the first time you looked at me completely. I speak the arms you lay in to fall asleep to.
4: Only I am not speaking to you anymore. I am speaking to him. How fucked up is that? I avenge my feelings of being scorned publicly by my lover by making love to a man who is involved.
2: I never say that. I never say making love. I think it a very dated expression. One that means nothing to most people who throw it around. Once this guy told me he wanted to make “serious like to me.” I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to say to that. So I said absolutely nothing and enjoyed being liked. I liked him enough…but he must not have liked me too much…he certainly didn’t like me too long….
4: In his haste, he forgot about me…the girl with the blue toenails.
He painted them for me one Saturday morning
As I stumbled through the remnants of last night’s back woods
Despite this, he sat there and gingerly painted them…
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: “You’ve got little pieces of sky on your toes,”
4: He said as he peered over the covers and saw them at the end of the bed…
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: “now you’ll walk on clouds.”
4: that was a while ago, now he forgot..
In his haste, he forgot all about me, the girl with the pale blue toenails
He painted them for me that Saturday morning because he thought I was an earth angel…
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: “It only makes sense for an earth angel to walk on clouds.”
4: he said as he pulled each one from his mouth….
SOUND CUE:
HIS VOICE: “I feel like you have taken me to heaven.”
4: that was a while ago, now he forgot.
In his haste, he forgot all about me, the chicken little girl whose sky has fallen from under her
feet…..
I can’t even remember how long ago it was when he painted them…..
He told me he liked sky blue…
I told him I was his angel….
I was his angel…..
I was his…..
In his haste, he forgot all about me…
Smoked me away with the weed that I bought….
Drank me away with the liquor I snuck out of the bar at work….
He forgot about me…..he forgot that
In his haste he forgot that I liked it better when he took his time….
I liked it better when he wasn’t hasty and when he could remember…
By the time he remembers the shade of blue they once were….
He may remember the woman they belonged to….
He may remember…but I choose now to forget…..i don’t wear blue anymore….
2: Take a breath.
3: Relax your mind.
1: It will all go away.
3: One day all of this will go away.
2: Or is will start to make sense.
4: Something has got to give. Something has got to happen.
1: The pain will go away.
4: Tell me that the pain will go away!
1, 2&3: The pain will go away!
4: Drink. Write. SCREAM!!!! Do something! I wanna forget. I wanna forget this feeling. Get rid of this feeling.
1,2&3: Sleep. Sleep.
4: Sleep? Make believe it doesn’ t bother me? Right, none of this bothers me. It doesn’t bother me to let an unworthy individual fuck me raw. Fuck me ‘til I walk funny… Fuck me ‘til I lose myself. but I didn’t do it right. I never do anything right, isn’t that right? isn’t that what you always said to me? I didn’t want this! I didn‘t want you. (whsipering) I didn’t want you…not like this. I tried to lose myself instead…but I think I lost something more important instead.
MUSIC: Outkast – “Liberation (Instrumental)”
2: I am born again. Keeping my legs closed.
3: Stopped sucking. Stopped screwing.
2: Strange. Phone stopped ringing.
4: Kept crying.
2: Missed my boyfriend.
4: Missed my fiancee.
1: Missed my baby. Missed my sweetie. Missed my BOO.
2: But, I’m starting over.
4: Found my self…kept up with it too.
2: I enjoyed driving again. Decided to be in the driver’s seat of my own happiness. Even if I am driving by myself…
1: I remember how it felt having my womb pounded flat. Remember how it felt with all those hands on my body. Tired of remembering.
4: Tired of disappointment.
2: Tired of sounding like other people.
1: Tired of moving my wrist away from the blade.
3: Tired of convincing myself that there is a silver lining.
4: Tired of Red Box nights with no movies.
2: Tired of not working.
1: Tired of working too hard.
4: Tired of always being the only one working when it is two of us in this.
3: Tired of always hearing sorry.
2: Sorry for being late.
1: Sorry for making me late.
4: Sorry for coming too soon.
1: Sorry for hurting me.
4: Sorry for having wives, baby mommas, criminal backgrounds, three year olds.
2: Sorry for not giving head.
All 4: Sorry for fucking my friends.
4: Sorry for being broke.
1: Sorry for breaking me.
3: Sorry I always forgive you.
(Music fades out. Woman 2 reaches into bag and pulls out a magazine. She then begins flipping through it)
3: But I realize that you weren’t waiting for my forgiveness, just my willingness to eventually forgive since I am saying all of this to your SNORING SLEEPING BACK!!!
Too sorry to even take the rubber off before passing out.
4 : damn. now that’s bad.
3: And here I am sorry that I didn’t stay my ass at home, play with myself, and go the hell to sleep, apologizing to myself in the morning for absolutely nothing.
MUSIC: Notorious B.I.G. – “Story to Tell (Instrumental)”
2: okay I have a question….(folds open magazine as if examining an article) what do you do when an akward situation arises between you and a new lover? What I mean is…do you a) address it immediately and make the situation even more uncomfortable, or do you b) catalog it in your mental rolodex as a strike against him?
3 : Here’s a «hypothetical» scenario: I have a man that I have slept with before…a bunch of times….things between us were never exactly comfortable…but they were tolerable…. the tides changed….and I moved away…not to escape him or anything…it was just time in my life for me to move on… I returned to the city where we lived separately and slept together simultaneously… I drove the entire 10 hours of a trip with hopes that many of the impasses that we had encountered had faded away as much as his words led me to believe they had…..
MUSIC: Miguel – “Quickie (Instrumental)”
I arrived to a scene from a movie. A scented bubble bath with candles and coco mango
incense lit….. I was feeling quite spoiled by the attention I walked in and found….I blushed a couple of times and was giggling to myself thinking of the amazing sex that was sure to follow that night…I heard my voice telling the story to my girls the next day eager to rub their faces in his remodeled newly sensitive self….Having just walked in off the road this was just what I needed… I also needed to go to the bathroom….
I lifted the toilet lid, (record scratch) and promptly had to close it right back…I don’t want to be nasty…
2: You can’t help it..
3: (cuts her eyes at 2) I don’t want to be nasty…. despite the beautiful setting of the bathroom. Despite the beautiful candles and incense and my bubbles and despite how wet I was and how much I was wanting this man…..He had shitted and not flushed the toilet….This is a grown man, and he can’t even remember to flush the goddamned toilet! I don’t mean there was a residue in the bowl…I don’t mean there were little floaties from when the jet breaks things up and everything doesn’t go down….I mean this grown ass man could think about being sexy enough to light candles and try and seduce me, but he couldn’t remember to flush the fucking toilet… In this situation, do you a) say something? you know, clown him and laugh it off, b) do you show your disgust and snap? or c) quietly flush the toilet and laugh with your friends later? Well after I’d flushed the toilet, I quietly took my bath and tried to unwind, then got out, oiled my body
and laughed to myself about the audacity of men because I knew in my heart of hearts that he wasn’t the one, I just didn’t want to have to find that out from a toilet bowl. it’s funny and its not because I am making up absolutely none of this……
4 : So nothing happened?
3: You crazy ? What do I want to fuck a man with a shitty ass for? A pretty face can’t make up for a shitty ass and a shitty attitude….
2 : Wait ! I got one better than that…I went down south for spring break…..
MUSIC : Tyga- “Rack City’ (Instrumental)” Other women dance.
Naw naw.. I went way down south…
MUSIC: Soulja Boy “Donk (Instrumental)” Women change dance up.
Naw Unh.. I went so far down south that it isn’t even considered the south…they go by a different name…they like to call themselves « MIAMI !»
MUSIC: 2Live Crew. “Hoochie Momma* (all women shake dance for a few
beats)
So I was in this wonderful world of fun and I met a man…Can you believe it? I met a man! Not only did I meet a man, my girl who was traveling with me met one too and they were friends….So it was all to the G-double O-D good…He was an asshole at first, but aren’t those always the ones we love? (music fades out) So this asshole, and I say that in the nicest most affectionate way, was young too…He was a young sexy asshole….Isn’t that just the best kind? So I played my role of him makin’ me sick….That lasted for about 25 minutes…Then I found out that this young sexy asshole liked feet….Now I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I happen to know, not think, know, that I have some fly ass sexy ass pretty feet…..but they have been known to get compliments….
4 : Here we go !
2 : Don’t hate .This young sexy asshole liked my pretty pretty toes…So we were walking along and in the moonlight of Miami suddenly he didn’t seem like such an asshole…
MUSIC : Wale – “Lotus Flower Bomb”
Suddenly he was just a sexy young thing who wanted to touch my feet….he wanted to rub my feet and caress my feet…and « lawd how I wished a man would take me down to the bayeau and rub my feet ! » that was from Jason’s Lyric for those of you who didn’t know….so I am on the beach…on this beautiful dark beach with only the light from the moon and the city lights behind us and it was warm…it was soooo warm and I felt soooo good and I was sitting in the sand facing him and he was facing me, not worrying about what would happen if my clothes got dirty…and this sexy young thing was rubbing my feet I think he must have studied reflexology or something ‘cause he was applying pressure and other parts of my body were loosening up and I was completely relaxed…this sexy young thing was looking at me so nice….i loved it….i was allowing my mind to pretend that maybe I could start something and the fct that he lived in one place, and I lived 350 miles away…and my feet had never felt as good as they did. I had my head hung back and was enjoying myself when I felt something….
SOUND : Record scratch.
1 : What, the desire to break your fast ?
2 : No, I felt something in my toes. I wanted to get up and leave…
3 : What do you mean you felt something in your toes ?
2: I mean he put it in my toes.
1: He put what in your toes ?
2: (sighs and sucks her teeth) He put his (whispers) penis in my toes !
(all women begin to laugh)
3: Why are you so nice nasty?
2: What is nice nasty about that? You act as though I am supposed to expect something like that! Here I was thinking all kindsa nice things about this sexy young asshole…
1: ( interrupts) So he was suddenly an asshole again?
2: YES! And he put his dick in my toes! How could he ruin a perfectly wonderful scene like that ?
4: What did you do?
2: I applied some pressure of my own.
(All women laugh)
1: I dreamed of you last night in a room filled with lavender lillies
2: room filled with lavender lilies and clouds the color of the ocean
3: clouds the color of the ocean in my dreams…
4: in my dreams…we breathed poetry into each other’s lungs
1: each other’s lungs and lived off the heat of the sun.
2: swimming through paradise, somehow I found you
3: I found you and laid with you in our bed of clouds…covering
4: covering naked thoughts with sun ripened fantasies
1: fantasies that we whispered into pillows of storm’s breath.
2: storm’s breath the earth would not move
3: the earth would not move until we were finished.
4: We laid in our bed causing an eclipse.
1: The stars framed us,
2: making a picture offering for the gods.
3: Sandalwood and patchouli filled the air
4: as nag champa burned the night away…
1: and I laid dreaming of you.
2: The strangest thing of all about my dream,
3: The strangest thing of all about my dream
4: The strangest thing about my dream.
ALL 4: I dreamt it with both eyes open.
BLACKOUT.
MUSIC : Jay-Z “Encore (Instrumental)”
THE END
