Priority Mail

An Original Monologue By: Amy Alls

Monologue should be performed by woman older than 25. Woman is seated, holding a postal service issued Priority Mail Box in her lap to begin and reacts to it according whatever her mood is throughout the piece.

Woman: Another package came in the mail for you this afternoon. I thought I told you to notify everyone that you weren’t living here anymore. I considered marking it “Return to Sender,” but I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to make sure you get your mail. After all, you haven’t lived here for almost a year now. It doesn’t help that the package was marked, “To the Family of Michael R. Franklin.” Nice, Mike. I realize that you can’t help how a package is addressed, but honestly, you could have taken the TWO minutes to do an official change of address with the post office so I didn’t have to be reminded of the fact that the phrase, “To the Family of” doesn’t apply to us anymore. Just when I start getting close to letting go, everything falls on top of me again. It’s like the explosion of a closet over-stuffed with knick-knacks and old clothes you just can’t get around to dropping off at the goodwill. It’s like the time we thought the landlord was going to do an impromptu inspection of the property, so we spent all night blasting Weezer and making the house at least look like it was clean by hiding all of our excess crap anywhere we could think of, only to find out the inspection was a rumor. Then, all we needed was your stupid plaid pants so you could wear them to the club—and everything fell out all over the place, not unlike the end of a game of Jenga. We dyed your hair that night instead of cleaning up the mess. It didn’t seem so bad then, the mess.

I’d call you, except I didn’t bother to get your number the last time we spoke. I didn’t really want to talk to you then and I want to talk to you even less now. You left us, Mike. You didn’t even look back. You didn’t even bother to call to make sure I was still alive. Now, this package…the second one since I ran into you a month ago after NOTHING for 9 months…You and the postal service seem to think nothing ever happened between us. You and the postal service won’t let me move on with my life. You and the postal service keep opening that closet door and letting all of the shit I have tried so hard to hide come crashing down on top of me over and over again.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I should just take the package back to the post office and let them know you don’t live here and I have no idea where you DO live. Maybe I should open that closet and get rid of that shit all by myself. That would require picking up this package and walking away from this house. That would require avoiding being buried under the numerous piles of memories stuffed everywhere around here. That would require opening that door, package in tow, walking through and never coming back. Then again, you already did that and still, your packages are coming here.

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