Tag Archives: Heartbreak

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Heartbreak.

A new short written and performed by Emmet Kirwin.

Directed by Dave Tynan

Starring Jordanne Jones and Deirdre Molloy

Previously: The Leaving

UPDATE:

A transcript…

Heartbreak.

Young One wakes
To the morning after
Sees graffiti-ed marker
Friends, names, written on the rafter
Of her sister’s bunk
Who’s no longer there
Disappeared

A feather
Blown to the night winds
Where some day
Young one hopes to follow.
Black permanent smells
Sweet and spells
Christine 1916
Deborah
Up The Ra
Jenny loves Karl
Taylor is a slag
I love Seán

Her face
Is a picture of grace
As she reaches, touches
Runs a hand along the bunk
Thump, thump thump
Now who would have thunk?
Her ma made it home

She’ll be early morning lucid
When Mam’s hazy
She lets Young One and friends
Sit in the box room
Listen to tunes
Smoke squidgy
Like cavemen
From the BC whens
They write the happy story
Of the lives
On the bedroom wall
It belies a hurt narrative.

The ma
Fuck does not give
Because she is well out of it
The daddy?
The picture?
Well, he has been out of it

Recently
Young One has got breasts
And attention
And not just boys I should mention
But fully grown men
Who remark
She’s an old 15
But an absolute 10
And that was when
The boys starting yelling:
‘Here, here, here,
Come here, come here, come here
Let me shout sweet obscenities
In your ear’
Heartbreak

She does a double take
And sees Seán
She feels
She likes this one boy
Because he didn’t shout
No
Young One is special
Young Fella said
She always thought her first time
Would be in a bed
Not a wet patch of grass
With a dog barking
At the back end
Of where two housing estates meet

And I think
When he said it
He meant it
He truly did
Because he’s not like
All the other boys
But he is still just a boy
Who’s pulling out late
And now pulling out early

She sits in a chemist queue
For a patronising talking-to
‘Well, if I knew it was going to happen,
I wouldn’t be here talking to you’.
So she bounces
Weeks later
Stomach follows suit
Sister, no longer there
For advice
If they were
Together she could be stronger
And one of her friends
Simply said, ‘stinger’

Her ma said, ‘here,
Come here, come here,
Come here, look, listen,
Understand
There’s no money
For a trip on the ringer
That’s only for those that can’
Heartbreak.

But now
She’s wide awake
No longer dropping yokes
But dropping little pre-natal
Vit, hit
No longer smoking rollies
With a little nodge of squidgy
She thinks ‘this little nodge in me
That I see
From this strangely rendered
Orange 3-D picture
Of my little… squidgy’

It doesn’t look or feel real
And the chemicals that are 12
Started running riot
And were only now just settling down
Are whipped up into a frenzied sensation
Of emotion
Puts her head on the brinks
And she thinks
Heartbreak

She has the baby on her own
But for its sake
She resolves
To love this thing
More than she was ever loved herself
But the gaff is still ill
The Auld One’s on the thrill
Of the back ends
And the hallways are still full of new
‘Come Here, Come Heres’
Every weekend

So she kicks it
To a back-alley B&B
Asks a grubby blue-shirted TD
For help
And the problem compounds
When he says
‘Go back to your mam’s’
Sound

Newspaper learns of her predicament
Asks for a photograph and an interview
So she rocks this little €15 Boohoo
Made by her counterpart
On the other side of the globe

‘Look at her,
She looks fine to me
My tax euros
Mean she gets everything for free’

‘What about cherishing
All of the children equally?’

‘It was a poet’s way of describing
Catholics and Protestants
Surviving harmoniously
Under one flag
Not so my taxes
Could pay for a house
For a working-class slag’
Heartbreak

But now it’s money she’ll have to make
Young One grows
And gets a job
Just to prove them all wrong
She kicks the rhyme in a zero-hour contract
No overtime
How can you work your way out of poverty
And down, down, down, down
Downtrodden, property
And keep getting poorer while working
She shouts
Cause prices go up
And wages go down
Now then she’ll have to do more
To change this hellacious situation
Progression
She feels
Will only come through education

The boy grows tall
And strong
And school becomes
A place for the two
And now inspired by a brilliant teacher
She’s got that yearning
For learning
But she’s not learning
For earning
No she’s just learning
For learning sake
So that she can articulate
This incandescent rage
Between all the young women
Of Ireland in 2016

She learns things
Like constitutional refusal
Of bodily autonomy
Thinks this is backwards
Blasphemy
You mean,
As a woman,
Or plebeian
In this country of opportunity
This ceiling
And sea
Is a shamrock-coloured green
Glass to me
You’ll only get the last of me

And still dealing with the ignominy
And getting followed
And hollered at
In the street
In spite of undergraduate accomplishment
‘Relax darling, take it as a compliment’
‘Boy’s leave it out, look at her, she’s a mother’
She says
‘Stop. Here.
Come here, come here, come here
I am not defined
By the fact that I am some man’s daughter,
Sister, cousin, mother.
I am a woman and I have agency
Just because I’m breathing air, motherfucker.
And I’m standing here, motherfucker
And you and the State are the ones
Who are trying to fuck me’

The boy sees this treatment
In the street
And from the state,
All his life
So he decides to regulate
But Young One now
Fully grown
Tries to sate this rage
And build this young man
This young boy
He will be the best elements of femininity
Wrapped in a rebellious feminine
But benign
Masculinity
The man she always hoped for
He will love you to the end of days
Traverse space
And time
And do even more
And with her words
Her life
A mixture of loving
And ethics
Food in his belly
And all the right seasoning
And from the instant he achieves
Cognitive reasoning
And then maturity
He will be the man
To settle up the score and say
‘Here Ma, you embody all that is good
And are the one that I am fighting for
I’ll never catcall
I’ll treat and respect
And help to create an Ireland that will stand
In awe of all mná’
Heartbreak
Heart mend

Corrections welcome