All My Sons

Right before Samantha left

She gave me a choice

I could have the lead role

In All My Sons

If I broke up with my boyfriend

You know, it was her final motherly act of meddling

Before gracefully bowing out

To run this bullshit children’s theater

In Kentucky

The longest tenure

Any Artistic Director had ever served

And she was leaving us

To go do Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

For fourth graders

In the middle of nowhere

I was pissed

Because, you know, in some ways

She was like my mother

But in other ways

I just wanted to tell her

To fuck off, because…

My boyfriend wasn’t some monster, you know?

He just didn’t like me doing theater

So I cut back

Which a lot of people do

Theater takes up a lot of time

And sometimes it’s hard on a relationship

So you have to cut back

Everybody does

Women cut back to have children

Men cut back so they have coronaries

From the fucking stress of it all

And I cut back because my boyfriend asked me to

But somehow that meant I was in this

Unhealthy relationship

But she knew I wanted that role

And she knew what it would mean to me

To be in her last show

The last one she directed

So she gave me this ultimatum

Break up with him

‘He’s not supportive of you’

Man, fuck you, lady

I said to her

I said—‘Do you think I want to end up like you?

Alone like you?

At least I have someone

At least I have something

Other than this fucking theater’

Because a lot of them don’t, you know

These actors, in this company

This is all they fucking have

Yeah, maybe my boyfriend’s no prize

But he’s something I can go home to

When this fucking place is too much

And that’s…

She gave me the role

Didn’t speak to me outside of rehearsals

Didn’t hug me when she left

Didn’t so much as say good-bye, but…

You know, things are said

What can I tell you?

Things are said

That can’t be unsaid

I lost the asshole anyway

A few years later, he…

He took off

That was after I officially quit

The company for him

A part of me is wondering

When Sam is going to call

To say ‘I told you so’

Part of me wouldn’t mind

Just hearing her voice again, you know?

It’d be a nice thing

To hear