A monologue from the play by Jacqueline Goldfinger
M (twenties)
The night before her funeral. You ripping out yourself in the woods. I sneaked over to the funeral home. Crawled into the coffin.
I crawled in, all eight years squished between the smooth velvet and her cold arm. And I reached up to hold her face.
To give her a kiss and say I love you and I’m sorry and if I did this, if I did, if this was my fault, I’m sorry, it was probably my fault.
It was probably my, because I was a—let’s be truth now—I was a pain in the ass. And I’s so sorry. And to come on back home.
I’ll be good. But when I reached up to hold, to kiss, I couldn’t get to her face. I couldn’t because there wasn’t no face there.
There wasn’t, There was a chin, And a mouth, And a nose, And bandages. And I couldn’t reach, or untie or unfold, or fold with or to or between us, I couldn’t.
I tried. I did. I’m sorry, Momma, I’m trying but I can’t reach you. And so I gave her a kiss on the cheek And snuggled down underneath her arm.
And the next morning The burial man find me And he says, “You can’t be here young lady. You a bad young lady.
Bad girl. Bad.” And he shoved me off. But in that long last night, I held her. I held her and I knew it was just gonna be me and you, Daddy.
Me and you, forever. No one else. No one else to cry or scream or … Any of us. Just us. And now there are pieces missing from both of you.
And I don’t want to find ‘em. Because it only means you’ll go away.
