The following slam-poetry monologue, entitled “Normalize Camera-Off”, was submitted by Monday Monday to be performed in the Me Too Monologues showcase. It was rejected.
Camera-off...
Camera...they SCOFF at ME.
That little button. That little “Video-Off” button.
They say I can’t press it.
My Professors...O-pressive.
Sifting through the masses of zoom boxes sadly.
First day of classes and I have to poop so badly.
A lecture on the ethics of Amazon.
I squirm around, yet they’re expecting my camera on.
A fire within me, a pain unmatched.
A door busting at the seams, desperate to be unlatched.
I sneak into my bathroom, I loosen my trousers.
And an eruption occurs, of earth-shattering loudness.
Bursts and squirts and flatulences of ungodly power...
Moans of relief at my anal release that feel like they last for hours.
The inferno finally ceases, its afterbirth nearly blinding.
I return to class relieved, all of my problems behind me.
When with horror and shock and dismay, I am too late to realize...
My microphone was un-muted the whole entire time.
I bear the heat and scorn of my professors and classmates.
Some students leave, some students cry. The TAs are irate.
I’d drop the class, but word spreads fast. There really is no use.
Plus I need it to graduate. So I stay in the class I pooped.
Now every day on zoom I sit, a saddened, dampened husk.
My camera on, my face drenched with a shameful, shameful musk.
My microphone may be muted, but I bestow you words of advice.
Heed them, please! I beg of you! Lest pay the ultimate price.
Don’t make the same mistake I made, for if you do, it may be your last.
Don’t get a Beyu Blue Dirty Chai Latte right before your class.
Monday Monday’s one-man-show, “Mondaybag” just got picked up as an Amazon Prime original series after an incredibly successful debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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