The Writer (NHB Modern Plays)

e approaches her – he takes her face in his hands – he kisses her.
She kisses him back.
It’s real love.
BOYFRIEND. Don’t do the job if you don’t want to it.
WRITER. Okay.
BOYFRIEND. I just desperately want you to be happy.
WRITER. I know.

He approaches her – he takes her face in his hands – he kisses her.
She kisses him back.
It’s real love.
BOYFRIEND. Don’t do the job if you don’t want to it.
WRITER. Okay.
BOYFRIEND. I just desperately want you to be happy.
WRITER. I know

Because you genuinely enjoy a sofa. And I know that sounds elitist and bit cunty and I sound like a narcissistic prick but there are cheerful people who sit all day and watch TV and love it. You are never happier than in the exotic-foods aisle at Waitrose selecting a new selection of snacking nuts and sometimes, I stand there, with the trolley and I feel like I’m dissolving inside just watching your capacity for happiness. And in me, for some reason, snacking nuts, exotic or otherwise, don’t stop this constant need for something – bigger – all the time. I want awe. I feel like I need blood. All the time. And anything less than that makes me feel desperate. It makes me feel like I want to die. Either I can feel real but I’m living in a world of cartoons or you and the world are real and I feel like I go see-through. And it’s not like that for you. You have snacking nuts. You’re perfectly happy in the world as it is. And it hurts to watch because I want to be like that so badly that it makes me actually hurt to watch you in Waitrose, smiling so much, over those snacking nuts.
Pause.
He approaches her – he takes her face in his hands – he kisses her.
She kisses him back.
It’s real love.
BOYFRIEND. Don’t do the job if you don’t want to it.
WRITER. Okay.
BOYFRIEND. I just desperately want you to be happy.
WRITER. I know.

friends over and I hold champagne and I go to bed after and pretend that I’m sleeping. And I do it every single day even though it makes my skin itch. And in a way, you can get away with loving me less.

It’s physically painful, a lot of the time, when we have

I feel like I can’t breathe most of the time.

The thing is. I really do love you. Do you get that? That I find it almost impossible to live like this /