continuation of my screenplay/poem/cathartic release by G.Rose)
—
(INTERMISSION)
BETWEEN TAKES: THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN BREATH
Between takes: the applause turns into silence. And suddenl you're left with the sound of your own breath, wondering if th show ever ended or if you just forgot your next line. With the orange cup in hand, I stare-blankly-at my wall, coming to these realizations, having no idea how to overcome my issues I've thanked you for watching, letting me paint the picture, but I want you to feel it, to have it engraved in your brain -to watch it unfold. Here, I watch myself like an inner/outer body experience to show you how Act I might have ended, but my life doesn't.
The show must go on-and my act never ends.
—
(PRELUDE)
BETWEEN TAKES: BATTLES OF THE BRAIN
The spiritual awakening nobody talks about isn't some soft light or calm realization. It's a slap in the face —a moment you realize God's been rearranging your life, forcing pieces to fall where they were meant to, not where you placed them. He's not punishing me, just tearing down everything I built that wasn't real. What I thought was bad luck was just life breaking me down so I could see what was underneath. The chaos had to come without warning —if I saw it coming, I would've fought it. If I had time to prepare, I would've stayed the same. Because anything anticipated would've been defended, and the false self never dismantles itself willingly. So instead, He hit me mid-scene, and I'm still figuring out whether I'm the actor or the act itself. The battle begins: between reality and my reality, between self and divine self. Between takes, I see glimpses of the truth but can't always act in a way that honors it. Broken boundaries known to bind broken hearts to their brains - hearts that bear the weight of betrayal. Between takes, I see what's bestowed upon me for a brief moment: a hollow barrier, a promise of a new, blissful beginning that never arrives, leaving
me belittled, blinded. You don't expect it all to come crashing down -but it must, for you to move on.
(Lights dim. The orange cup remains center stage, glowing faintly.)
—
(ACT II)
BETWEEN TAKES: BOUNDLESS BETRAYAL
—
I am censored even on a divine level.
Everything isn’t going my way,
and it’s because I am part of something bigger.
God has His hand far up my back like a puppet.
I sit on His lap, a ventriloquist’s dummy,
speaking lines I didn’t write,
placed in scenes I never auditioned for.
This is boundless betrayal
to trust the hand that moves you
while questioning if it’s ever really been yours.
He stopped me in my tracks
in the middle of my kitchen
because I’ve been moving too fast,
not seeing the fruits of my labor rotting away,
molding because I haven’t tended to the right parts of myself.
—
Self-aware yet self-destructive,
but not aware at all.
Sometimes God gives you a problem
you have to figure out how to solve
and I like puzzles.
That’s why I keep wracking my brain about it,
trying to find the symbolism.
I keep re-explaining the plot,
and something about the orange cup now triggers me.
—
It’s been days,
and I have yet to wash it.
She just sits in my sink,
a physical representation of where I am in my life
still, stuck,
the wires God has been pulling
coming to a halt
so I can finally perceive what I’ve been avoiding.
—
How funny of me
to now place blame on someone else,
to try and take responsibility away from myself.
But it’s almost as if I don’t have a choice.
I even censor myself when speaking to God
the all-knowing
as if He doesn’t know,
as if He wasn’t orchestrating, watching, judging.
—
The one day I’ll be honest
is probably Judgment Day,
in the middle of the judging chair,
orange cup in trembling hand
fully exposed, in tears,
to finally meet the real me.
Until then,
I hide within myself,
scared of everyone’s eyes,
including my own.
⸻
Between takes, I can hear the faint sound of my own breath
steady, unplanned,
proof that I’m still alive somewhere beneath the act.
I try to pull back,
but the strings tighten.
My fingers tremble as they type,
my tongue falters mid-phrase,
uttering lines I didn’t script.
The audience is gone,
but the performance doesn’t stop
He watches.
I am still the actor, still the poet, still the false self.
—
And yet — something stirs.
A flicker of awareness,
a spark beneath the surface
that refuses to obey every tug.
I twitch against the strings,
my spine arcs like a violin string under tension.
The orange cup in my hand rattles slightly,
as if it too senses the first pulse of rebellion.
—
In this provisional presence,
I spill water from my infamous cup
it trickles down, creating a puddle at my feet
where I see my reflection:
muddled, fractured, rippling with each tug.
But this time, I reach toward it.
Not to perform,
not to narrate,
but to touch the edges of truth beneath the water.
—
I can feel the strings pulling me back,
but my hands shake anyway.
I put pretend on pause,
and for a fleeting second,
I almost recognize myself.
My voice cracks mid-word,
stuttering phrases that are half my own, half the performance.
—
I am resisting.
Not fully, not yet,
but the effort exists.
This is boundless betrayal
to be both the deceived and the deceiver,
the marionette and the puppeteer.
The false self is screaming its lines,
but the real me is starting to speak between them.
I taste the beginnings of honesty
bitter, raw, and heavy.
—
The curtain hasn’t fallen.
The audience may never applaud.
But I am here, trembling in the middle of my kitchen,
orange cup in hand,
listening to the sound of my own breath,
learning for the first time that resistance itself
is a scene worth performing.
—
CURTAIN CLOSE:
To those who stayed through the silence, thank you. For watching me unravel mid-scene, for seeing me as more than the role I played.
I know this act wasn’t easy to sit through ,it wasn’t meant to be. But if you heard the tremor in my voice, the break in my breath, then you’ve witnessed something real.The show pauses here, not to end, but to let the air clear.I’ll take a bow, not for the performance, but for surviving it.
Thank you for your patience while I learned how to breathe again, between takes.
⸻
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Act II was never meant to be beautiful. It was meant to expose what the mirror refused to say aloud —the trembling truth that performance is survival, and survival is sometimes the only thing we know how to do.
If Act I was confession, Act II is confrontation —the moment you realize you’ve been playing both roles all along: the sinner and the savior, the puppet and the hand.
And somewhere between takes, in the quiet after pretending, you start to hear yourself breathe, not as a character, but as a human being finally coming back to life.