Disclaimer: Not mine.
They always thought I'd be the one.
The one to run wild (which I did), the one to go far (which I didn't), the one to fall apart (which I haven't). In fact, I've held together well. Quite well, given the circumstances.
Sure, I dance and sing and kiss and smile and I'm freefreefreefreefree.
I let older men hold me and I drink the liquor they give me, and yes I enjoy it.
They condemn me for being indecent. Filthy. Coarse. Vulgar.
They-
Let's clear be clear about this.
There is no "they". There's only you, with your morals and principles and confining propriety.
The glances you give me, like I'm dangerous, like I'm the one denying the horrors of my life.
Do I drink and dance and run like some wild animal to escape? I do. But it's not to escape my problems. It's to escape yours.
I see you, you lying hypocrites.
Lie to your children, hurt your children, shame them, then beat them, then shove them and their bleeding problems under a rug, under six feet of dirt, under a respectable headstone, no questions asked.
It's easier that way, right?
What will you do when there are no more children? Skipping and free one day, confused and dying for guidance the next.
Dying.
You deny them the knowledge they need, cowering under your excuse of "respectability". You're just as frightened as they are. Afraid to put words to this new depth your children have gained. Unwilling to save them, you turn away and in doing so, sentence them to a pained, troubled life, if not a pained, troubled death.
I see the grief that Frau Bergman tries to hide under her mask of no-nonsense sternness.
I see Herr Stiefel feign indifference when really the guilt for being too harsh on his son is killing him, and I see Frau Stiefel who is in such terrible pain but feels that she has to hide it. After all, it doesn't make for pleasant conversation to be constantly mourning one's son, now does it?
I see Ernst. Lonely, longing, unrequited. His lover is looking beyond him now, for something that simple Ernst cannot offer.
Martha is getting quieter and quieter, but I'll tell you, that wild look in her eye is showing up more and more often lately. She is an animal, being pushed to her breaking point. Watch out.
Anna is frightened by the burgeoning sexuality within her. She is just as at a loss as Wendla was, startled and curious about these new feelings, new curves. Don't think Georg hasn't noticed.
Thea, younger, is alienated by these differences she's noticed in her friends. What will she do while they go mad?
And Melchior, that brilliant boy? Where will his spirit and ideals and beliefs and radical convictions be once he's through at that hell they call "reformatory"? He's strong, but is he strong enough?
See, we're both like that. Haunted by their shadows, their whispers, their unfulfilled intentions.
I worry what will happen to them- to you.
I wonder what will happen to me. Too much reflection, too much thought in this dismal desperate depressing town, I worry about myself! I study you all, see what you refuse to, and I get scared.
I've run wild, I haven't gone too far, and I haven't fallen apart.
Yet.