By Austin Hendricks
Featured in Caesura 2020: Imago
A Monologue by Anne.
I rarely open myself up to others. I feel like they won’t like what they’d learn if they were able to see the real me. Well, not the real me but the me that I know. The one that only exists in my bedroom at night. That me is unfiltered. Raw. Human. I am the only audience that she has, and she knows she can be herself around me. If I show even an ounce of who I am when I am alone, I am afraid that I won’t be able to reign it all in. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep what I want to back and the floodgates will open and everything that I demand stays private is out in the open for the world to see. As naked and as free as I was on the day I was born.
Basically, I’m afraid to be me.
Austin Hendricks is a senior theatre and writing major at Indiana Wesleyan University. He finds that writing is one of the best ways to express himself. When not writing, Austin is usually working in the theatre, attempting to find his light.