Nightluster

I wish I could take credit for the writing in this post but it belongs to one Laura Herrington. And when I first heard this monologue performed in 2006 by Kat Roll in Acting I class, I cried.

I don't think people see me. I get this feeling sometimes like I'm invisible or something. I can be standing there in a room and I'm talking and everything, and it's like my words aren't getting anywhere and I look down at myself and sometimes my body isn't getting anywhere either. It's like I'm standing behind a one-way mirror and I can see the guys and I can hear the guys, but they can't see me and they can't hear me. And I start to wonder if maybe I'm ugly or something, like maybe I'm some alien species from another planet and I don't speak the language and I look totally weird. But I don't know this, you see, because on this other planet I had this really nice mother who told me I was beautiful and that I had a voice to die for because she loved me so much, not because it was true. And I arrive here on Earth and I'm so filled with her love and her belief in me that I walk around like I'm beautiful and I sing like I have a voice to die for. And because I'm so convinced and so strange and so deluded, people pretend to listen to me... because they're being polite or something -- or maybe they're afraid of me. And at first I don't notice because I sing with my eyes closed. But then one day I open my eyes and find out I'm living in this world where nobody sees me and nobody hears me. I'm just looking for that one guy who's gonna hear me, see me... really take a chance. I mean, I hear them. I'm listening so hard I hear promises when somebody's just sayin' hello. Jesus, if anybody ever heard what I've got locked up inside me... I'd be a star.