Melancholy Play - Tilly

Monologue

[Start Monologue]

Do you ever have that feeling where—
Where you wake up in the morning
and you're—you're in love
but you don't know with what.

It's like you want to love strangers,
or you want to kiss the guy at the post office
or the woman at the grocery store,
and you want to just like wrap your arms
around life, like life itself—
and you can't.

*and you can't.*

So…
so there's nowhere to put this growing
happiness inside you,
so you're floating
and then you fall
and you're unbearably sad.

*and you're unbearably sad.*

Everybody keeps asking me,
oh, are you still in therapy?
And I'm in therapy,
but then my therapist falls in love with me so—

um…
I have to be careful.

*I have to be careful.*

I'm not exceptionally beautiful
and—and I'm not exceptionally smart,
but I suffer
so well
and so often.

*and so often.*

People see me cry
and—and they see a river that they haven't swum in,
so—so they take their trousers off
and they jump right in,
and then dry themselves off in the sun,
and—
and they are completely dry…

and I'm still wet.

*and I'm still wet.*

And I don't know—
Maybe…
maybe my suffering is from a different time,
when suffering wasn't sexy.

*when suffering wasn't sexy.*

Oh what—what?
Am I being weird?