DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: Morning Star, by Hayley Kinsella

I once spent a week
In a place
Where sick people go
When they’ve had enough
Or when they’ve had too much.
But it wasn’t the open shower doors,
Missing shoelaces,
Dinners on plastic trays
With plastic forks,
Or even the constant sobbing from neighbors
That I found hard.

It was leaving.

I could have stayed there forever
In that tiny room
Where I knew
That everyone around me
Was fragile
Was hurting
Was in need
Of respect
Or guidance
Or empathy
Or patience.

There,
I wasn’t the anomaly.
You ask then
What was hard?

The first day I left
My tiny safe haven room
And was forced
To walk back into
The nightmare
I had finally woken up from.

To see that bed
My bed
With the new information
Of knowing
What a bed
Without a criminal history
Looks like,
Feels like,
Smells like.

Something told me I deserved it
And deserved to sleep there.
As if it was my responsibility
To hold these memories,
This pain,
To not allow it to escape
As if it could infect others
If they knew.

This hopelessness and fear
Awoken something in me.
As I was planning my next deadly cocktail,
Searching for a pen and paper
To say goodbye
But for real this time.
No mistakes,
No miscalculations,
One more chance
To get it right
To make it count
I found the courage
To ask myself:

Why do you want to die so badly?

Because I can’t live
In a world so dark.

There’s nothing left for me here.

If darkness is the problem
Then I must be the light.

Yes?
Does that make sense?

If the world is so dark
Then I have to be the light.

Why did that end my plans?
Stopped in their tracks,
And still living in exile
Somewhere deep in my mind.

I never did find a pen.
Or the paper I was looking for.

Don’t tell me it was hope
That I found
Because it wasn’t.
Don’t tell me I’m resilient
Because I’m not.

I have taken
The sole responsibility
Of the world’s goodness
Kindness
Light
Into my own hands.

I don’t owe anyone anything.
I have become
The morning star
By my own free will.