smoke

The stage is dark and empty. Jeremy, Rebecca, and Will stand in a line upstage of Bernard and Ann-Marie, with even spaces between them of about an arm�s length. Jeremy is at stage right, Rebecca in the center, and Will at stage left. Rebecca and Will are holding hands with arms spread slightly to accommodate the space. Bernard and Ann-Marie stand downstage of the others, next to one another, but not directly in front of the other characters so that each character can be clearly seen by the audience. Both of them keep their faces toward the back wall of the theater. None of the characters look directly at each other or the audience when speaking, and should act as though each line is internal, with minimal to no movement. A spotlight is shone and left on each character upon speaking, dimming when the line is finished but left on.

Rebecca (turning head to Will, but looking down toward the floor rather than at his face): I love you.

Will (turning head to Rebecca, also looking down): I love you.

Jeremy (looking toward Ann-Marie): I am not in love with you. But I do love you.

There is a pause. When Ann-Marie begins to speak, the spotlight on her is dim, and builds to the same intensity as the others only when she delivers her final line in the play. She alone is permitted to look at the audience when speaking.

Ann-Marie (to the audience): I used to rub salt in my wounds. I remember watching straight and stone faced as the knife would saw through my skin. Once was never enough. It had to be done hard, and back and forth, and again and again and again until the pain would finally roll in, sharp as dawn air, and the blood would leak out with each little drip drip drip until it cooled and hardened like magma. Then I would spit in my hand and pour salt into my palm until I made a filthy paste that burned even my unblemished skin, which I then took and scrubbed my cuts and seared myself like fire. The smoke was invisible, but I could feel it rising from the raging fire on my arms that stabbed and hurt and healed. I felt like I was letting the devil out. It�s all we ever wanted, just to let the devil out. The devil that burns our hearts up with pain and rage and desire. Let the smoke out. Breathe in. Breathe out. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and the smoke, it overtakes me.

Another pause.

Bernard (facing the back wall and tilting his head slightly upwards): Can you love me?

The spotlights should now be shone with equal intensity on every character and then begin to fade a few moments after Ann-Marie speaks. The curtain is to be drawn and closed at the same time as the theater is finally left in darkness.

Ann-Marie: Do you love me?

my life

so this is my life as of now.

i work at logan's. mornings and whenever i feel like working a double. currently work is all that i do.

my roommate went psycho on me saturday morning after a long night of partying so i had to move back in with my parents. i need a new roommate and i'd prefer someone i knew. nick introduced me a while back to this girl named christina who had some roommate issues. she works at sal and mookie's and has really curly hair. i asked him to get ahold of her for me but i haven't been able to get that contact yet.

i need a new apartment.

my psycho ex roommate/friend has been telling lies about me to everyone that we know. so the kid and will and melissa may or may not think i'm crazy. but i'm trying to convince them that it is in fact he who is crazy. mr. psycho also says i made up the whole thing as some twisted way of getting back with the kid. but that would be ridiculous and counterproductive. if you know the person to whom i am referring, i warn you now to stay far far away.

living with my parents again sucks. but i don't think i can afford a new place on my own. if you're reading this and you need a new place to live holler at me.

i owe everyone money.

i need a slutty halloween costume.

i'm bored.

i watch too much espn.

mainly though, i just want to have a new apartment...

a lack of color

Everything that I used to do, to be, I now go through without feeling. The drugs, the drinks, the sex. Even the music. Go to work. Go home. Sleep. And everything I see, everything I do, I look upon with a gray sadness and know to myself, no, I do not love you. My dearest friends, my family, my life...no, I do not love you...I do not love you...I do not love you...

I look at my life and I pity myself. You drunk, you drug-addled whore. You brokenhearted wretch. You miserable fool. And for what, for what? What did I do to cause my life to be so meaningless? So lacking in anything resembling love or joy that its only worth is being worthless? Love is happiness, love is beauty, love is the most magnificent of the illusions. But pain is the truth. And I...I seem to exist solely for the purpose of drawing in and breathing out the truth. I am so unhappy, and will forever be this way, because I insist upon living and demanding and drawing out the truth. No, I do not love you. I do not love you. I do not love you. The only truth that there is.

And so I sit here and I pull my necklace and I pull my hair and I bite my fingers and I scratch my hands and I cut my arms. If you rub scrub salt over blood it bubbles a little bit. Did you know that? Did you know that you can pull five hairs at a time out of your head and won't feel any pain? Did you know that you can gnaw the skin off your fingers without feeling anything? When I was little I used to take needles and jab them through the thick-skinned parts of my hands to scare my friends. It doesn't hurt. But everything else does.

All of the questions I have ever asked have been answered, and answered truthfully. I do not love you. I do not love you. But the one question, the one that matters, the one that drives at me and bites me and burns me and plagues me, the most important question...why is it like this?

I don't know.

I love nothing anymore. I will never fall in love again.

And it makes me sad, to know that things must always be this way. To know that my life will forever be gray. Colorless. To know that I only exist in the negative space.

Without love, nothing else remains.

I do not love you.

Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.

sadnesses

These things make me sad.


The sadness of being drunk.
The sadness of being sober.
The sadness of not feeling sad.
The sadness of sex.
The sadness of knowing the truth.
The sadness of believing a lie.
The sadness of pride.
The sadness of humiliation.
The sadness of feeling righteous.
The sadness of being depraved.
The sadness of work.
The sadness of passion.
The sadness of being passionless.
Gray sadness.
Anger sadness.
The sadness of knowing the future.
The sadness of knowing the past.
The sadness of remembering.
Friendship sadness.
The sadness of being alone.
The sadness of being surrounded.
The sadness of being lonely.
The sadness of beauty.
The sadness of unbeauty.
The sadness of being lovely.
The sadness of being unlovely.
The sadness of music.
The sadness of sleep.
The sadness of being awake.
Dream sadness.
The sadness of not being in love.
The sadness of being in love.
The sadness of loving nothing.
The sadness of loving everything.