Black Hole

Are you married?
He asks as we sit backstage
Waiting for our entrance
Together
As chauffeur and maid
Laughing and teasing
Finding joy in tonight's moment
I don a new identity
If only for a couple weeks
I am happy
He calls me Maggie
And asks for some more tea
As he places his hand on my thigh
I giggle imagining you
The man I'll never have
Separated by lives that began
Long before I came around
I'm sad and despondent
With my nose in a book
Transported to another Maggie
I read about long ago
A timid one huddling in the corner
Impoverished and abused
Like me,
Beautiful
Hopeful
Naive
And falling from grace
With my veneer of happiness
I trudge on
Trying to forget how he seduced me
Abandoned
Forgotten
Rejected
Left to succumb to a fate
Darker than any noir I've ever seen
I am that woman he sleeps with
Rather than the one he marries
Tragedy coming
As I wait for human agents
To memorize their lines
And blacken my existence
Waiting for the inevitable
Doom--
The darkness
Of my life--
I tremble.