The Perfect Hour
(fragment)
by Ceza Bularca 

Ali
And afterward? It’s all so temporary, I don’t even care if it’s fake or not, it ends and then (beat) abandon.
 
Matthew
For us, it goes on… (light goes out)
 
Ali
It doesn’t mean less abandonment.
 
Ali (to the audience)
He told me that polyamory can have rules, that it’s perfectly okay to set boundaries. I told her I promised myself that I would face my fears in this relationship. That I’d let myself get stroked by jealousy, fear of abandonment, desperation, and attachment until I can let go. (pause) Every time I feel someone getting close, I make myself small and tuck myself into a corner where I almost have a panic attack. I get up and choose to take my validation. (pause) We’re surrounded by people, lights, shots, and cut-up cardboard straws. He approaches someone. I run to whoever else can soothe my fear by dancing with me, kissing me, looking at me. When it’s just the two of us in bed again, and as he tells me, “Everything’s the same between us,” it’s only then that I gain, for a moment, my freedom.
 
Matthew
We talked about it, I told you we can have rules or limits or whatever.
 
Ali
I don’t want rules. I care about you, but at the same time I can’t give up what I feel for other people, and, I repeat, nothing changes between us, or at least not because I feel something for someone else. And what do you mean, boundaries? What do you mean by boundaries?    By what fucking right could I require you not to do something that really doesn’t hurt me?
 
Matthew
It does hurt you.
 
 

Ali
That’s absurd. Yeah, okay, it hurts me, but that’s  because we’ve been raised on “jealousy is the only way”, and I want to escape, to feel abandonment and jealousy and whatever until I don’t feel this undue pain anymore.
 
Matthew
Wouldn’t it be better to take a break? It doesn’t seem to do you any good what’s going on between us.
 
Ali
And that wouldn’t hurt me?
 
(…)