A Conversation
Life, learning, love. Or lack thereof.

(Two girls sitting on chairs in center stage; other than that, the set is totally empty. Girl Two remains totally emotionless during the entire speech.)

Girl One

I have over four hundred scars.

I have many addictions, not the least of which is cheesy teen romance.

I have suffered, tortured, betrayed and been betrayed; I’ve been wounded, healed, and wounded again. I have been through more than you have ever claimed to. And you expect me to protect you? From this?

I did it because I could see no other way to keep myself alive. You wanted the attention, so I gave it to you. A present. I sacrificed my privacy to give you a gift. Now you have what you craved; if you didn’t get it from the person you  wanted, I can’t help you anymore! I couldn’t stand to see you choose the path I did for reasons that could easily be remedied--without true need.

It’s not that I wish it on anyone.

But I have to protect--to punish?--those would take and mock those with too much pain. You show me your scars, your one-inch shallow scabs? I’ll show you mine--there, one-two-three slicing from my hipbone to my knee; third time’s the charm, right? One down the middle of each arm, four inches--before I even knew how to kill yourself the right way. A prodigy, that’s me. Do you want to be initiated in the ways of pain like that? To be precocious is not always to be clever or charming.

Do you want to fight this overwhelming need for the rest of your life? Do you really want to debate over wearing shorts in ninety-degree weather because you don’t want people to know your rituals? Do you want to depend on anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, anti- feeling drugs--not pills, not meds, they are drugs that alter my state of mind: I’m never totally myself, never, because if I was I would not be here , I would be dead--really? Do you really want the rage and the guilt and despair that I battle with every minute of every hour of every day, only to be followed by an inability to feel anything at all?

Do you want to be emotionally numb for years on end before everything dumps back on you so suddenly and so heavily that you have to shed your own blood--you have to mark your own skin so that you’ll never, ever be able to live without these memories--so you have to kill yourself by inches in order to stop yourself from doing it in one fell swoop? To give yourself the will to live?

Well? DO YOU?

Because I don’t want you to.

Because I care enough that I want to make sure you don’t go through the hell I did--

(Girl Two gets up, still expressionless, crosses behind the chair, still holding onto the back.)

Oh, but I forget.

(Long pause. Girl Two looks back, then turns away and walks offstage.)

You’re as selfish as I am.

The End.

--
Rough, I know, but it was an interesting concept. Maybe I’ll rewrite/rework it someday. Too many italics.