In drama monologue, “Petals From a Rose”, Clifford explains to the woman he loves why they were not meant to be together.

CLIFFORD: My mind, Margaret. It is not well. Something happened to me on that day.  Something came over my mind. I suddenly believed myself to be unworthy of you, of our love, of our future. Destruction lured me, pain lured me, rather than the idea of happiness and love. I watched you pace back and forth several times, along the platform.

I watched you fret as my heart bled, until eventually you left. 

After watching you leave the platform, I fell unconscious and woke up in a hospital, where I proceeded to cause havoc, the most violent kind and was admitted to an asylum, against my will, where I remained for quite some time.

I still do not know why this madness chose me, why it took hold of me, and why it held me prisoner, away from you. I—I thought about you each day; I longed for you. Time—so much time was given to me and used up to put myself back together.

I have suffered to regain whatever mental faculties were possible, but I am not a well man, a stable man, I battle this disease with no one to cure me but myself. I learn. I travel. I think. I imagine. I write. I improve. I function. I am functional. You’re looking at me, I’m looking at you. I can coexist with those around us, so long as I concentrate. So long as I force myself to the task…otherwise…I am here on business, yes, but I have calculated my way to see you, to have this moment with you, to admit to you that I did wrong by you, for something that—this force that, takes me away from you…and I believe still haunts you, as it does me—I have come to shatter it once and for all. I am not what you believed me to be, Margaret…

The memory of me must be replaced by the truth of me. My truth….the inescapable love that I had and will always have for you…to set you free of my ghost. To know that, to know that…we did exist.

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In the one-act play, “Petals From a Rose”, many years have gone by wherein Clifford and Margaret were supposed to start a new life together, but never did.  The two speak for the first time at a Cafe, both having undergone a new life.    1 Woman, 1 Man.  Drama.  

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