Lantern Review: Issue 5
Look at me, bitch.
(38 tries to look away, but 18 grabs her, slaps her, grabs her by the shirt)
You see me?
I’m still in the fucking mirror
and you’re terrified
that I’m still
in you!
38
(wrestles away from 18)
Shut up shut up shut up
Shut up
you
fucking
gook!
(long pause. 38 is staring down 18 and 28. 18 is shaking her head shockedly; 28 is ashamed, looking away)
18
(quietly)
And there it is.
38
‘Cause that’s what you are,
what I still am,
no matter how many degrees you earn
how many people you save
Takeo Rivera
We will always
be suspect
to the bullets
and the words that shape them
(to 18) There’s nothing you did
(to 28) or you did
(beat)
or I can do
That can bring him back
(beat, gathers rage towards 18 & 28)
So how dare you,
how dare you
judge the woman
that you have become—
I am here, standing here,
because this is the best
we could have ever fucking done
And don’t you even think for a second
that a day doesn’t go by when you
haunt me
you torture me
with echoes of the gunshots
the tears of our clients
telling me that I am never allowed
to be anything other than the
death of my brother