Solo Performance - More!

OPENING SCENE

Walk into bedroom on the phone.

Na aqui, llegando a la case, mhm.

En la escuela todavía

él llega como a la 10:30

Si mami yo se que eso e tarde pero el tiene 15 años y no lo voy esperar.

Porque yo tengo que levantarme temprano.

Yo se.

Tabien mami…tabien

Tu sabe que…yo te llamo mañana que tengo cosas hacer y tengo que cosinar

Ok. Sion mami. Bye.

Turn to audience

I wish all my conversations with my mother were pleasant they’re not

but she’s come a long way from her “soy madre antes que mujer bull shit.”

She’s come to terms that I am going to do life my way.

I love my mother, but I refuse to be like her, just a mother.

Part 1

I’m more than just a mother. I’m a woman.

A woman with dreams, aspirations, passion and desire.

I’m a woman that wants more, that wants to feel more, like with that man in the basement.

I LOVED how he Fucked me without even being IN me.

It was the first time that anyone had met my desires so profoundly.

Although I was only 12…he made me feel more.

Part 2

You see, growing up I would sit by the window of my family’s 2-bedroom apartment in the projects in East Harlem.

I would sit there for hours, watch the other kids an die to be like them…FREE.

When I was 10, I noticed two pit bulls standing in the middle of the park.

It seemed as though no one else except them and their owners.

The female waited patiently on all fours, as the male dog stood behind her, with his two front paws holding on to her back side and thrusting his hips against her.

She just stayed there and let him.

She didn’t seem bothered or pleased.

She just stayed, submissive to his desire.

I wasn’t fully sure what was happening with the dogs or with me, but there was this gentle throbbing between my legs. A feeling I had not felt before, but I kinda liked it.

So I called my mother and asked, “mami, que hacen eso perro?”

She walked up to the window, glanced outside, grabbed both sides of the curtains and shoved them together and yelled, “muchacha no mire eso!”

In that moment the throbbing stopped, and my attention rushed from in between my legs to my chest and then to my head. Carmen SIGH

It’s been years and I’m still stuck there…in my head, always thinking, processing, analyzing everything, over and over… all the fuckin time.

There are times that I’m pulled out of my head.

SLOW…Like when my twin sister's lifeless body fell from the roof of her 14th floor building.

We still don’t know if she killed herself…or if her younger boyfriend pushed her.

We were only 33.

Part 3

Her death pulled me so far out of my head…that it almost killed me.

Around that time, I just wanted something different for my life…something more.

I ended up moving into her apartment, taking guardianship of her two daughters, one of them who was a mother by the way, seeing my 3 boys only the weekends, barely making it through grad school and exploring what it meant for me to be a queer, dominican woman…mother in a biracial relationship living in the fuckin projects.

I did it though, gracefully and with no complaints.

But it wasn’t until I was holding on to the rails at the east river that I though, the only way that someone would recognize my floating body would be by the ID I’d left on the bench.

I suddenly found myself in my head again, this time there was nothing to overthink.

I looked up at the gray morning sky and noticed how the clouds slowly parted a ray of sun peaked out, almost blinding me. In that moment, I was reminded that he only reason I didn’t kill myself was because I believed in something bigger…in something more.

I sat down on the bench with my ID in my hand, closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

A week later I scheduled an appointment to see a therapist.

Part 4

It’s because of memories like that that we want to leave the past in the past…Right?

Anyway…life is not always that bad.

There are other times when the throbbing brings me back.

Like when I’m sitting at my desk, and the warmth in between my legs grab my attention. In those moments, I begin to slowly squirm and I want more.

I lean back and slide my hand into my pants, my fingers paving the way, my wetness confirming I’ve hit the right spot.

I move my hand up and down…faster and faster, my body warming up and tensing at the same time. I relax my shoulders, my legs, my hand.

I want to keep going, I want to finish, and then I notice the fuckin permission slip that I forgot to give my son two days ago.

My body wants to relax, it wants to cum, but I don’t let it.

I want to hold on to that feeling just a little longer, but instead, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, adjust myself and remove my hand. Being reminded by the silky feeling in my fingers that there is little to no time for that part of me.

Because when? When is there more time?

After dinner is made, the dishes are washed, the house is cleaned, laundry is done and the fuckin permission slips are signed?

There is no more time!

But if I’m honest with you, I miss those parts of me…parts that hide behind so many roles and responsibilities and God forbid I lose control.

I can’t, I won’t.

Part 5

But sometimes I find myself in situations and with people who encourage me to step out of my comfort zone, and I budge…because I want to experience something more and because I refuse to play by society's rules and be told what kind of woman…mother I should be. I'm so much more.

I want more.

Part 6

I’ve always wanted more, I wanted more at twelve and I still want more , but there are some deep seeded wounds that I want to heal first.

Wounds left by the men in my life who taught me that I don't deserve more.

Men like my stepfather who’s lap I would sit on as a little girl playing with his chest hair hoping he would see me, instead he would look straight ahead, pass me, as if I weren’t even there.

Men like my father who lived in DR and when we'd call and I'd ask why he never called he would say, “tu tiene que entender que yo tengo una familia aqui que mantener.” I had to understand.

But not that man in the basement that was twice my age. Right or wrong…he saw me, he made time for me and even if it was only through the whispers of my moans, he also heard me. Too bad that was only a part of me.

Part 7

But I’m tired. I’m fuckin tired of always stretching myself so thin that I forget that all those bits and pieces that I've left out in the world make up a whole me.

Becoming a mother at 16 took up a huge part of my life, but I love being a mother, I do, but what I struggle with is that I can’t accept, I won’t accept being just a mother. because I want more.

Part 8

Whether we choose to take more or not…our life is our responsibility and it starts by asking those uncomfortable questions and being willing to explore and answer them.

Questions and answers that promise some kind of relieve, liberation.

I used to think that liberation was doing whoever or whatever I wanted, but it’s so much more.

It’s about acknowledging the throb, not just the one in between our legs, but also the ones in our heart and our minds.

Liberation is never letting anyone or anything close the curtain to our desires.

SHIT!

Sorry!

I take that last part back, fuck liberation, because I still have shit to do and food to cook.