Artist: Alisa Amor 

Title: Poem 2, (Loneliness)

Completed: March 2018

Running Time: 3:40

This is a demo of the penultimate musical number. During this piece, Rosario has a sword fight with her shadow self which she names “Loneliness.”  They end the duel by becoming allies and declaring that they must be one with Mother Earth; Rosario has found inner peace before her last moment.

The song will be performed by two singers each playing an aspect of Rosario’s mind, plus the chorus which will include men and women.

Poem 2 (Loneliness)

My house, a hive where the only bee that flies

is silence.

Loneliness is sitting on my couch 

and messing up my sheets

she is lying on my bed again

and she opens the book ,to the page 

where it says

the name of my fight

this duel is to the death.

When loneliness is thirsty, she says cry for me

as she waits deep inside of all my mirrors

and so carefully she closes all my windows

she makes sure no light can ever enter.

Loneliness, my enemy, she rises up

like a sword she wants to wound me.

She’s like a noose around my neck

and she is strangling me.

I am not the innocent one 

who drinks the water

I don’t wake up with the clouds

these vines of mine will never rise above their borders

I’m all alone in here, surrounded by these walls

my doors are closed forever;

all alone I break bread on the table

all alone when it’s time to light the lamps

all alone I say my prayers every night

and I receive the visit of the devil.

Sometimes my enemy, she pounces,pounding with her fists

holding me down, asking and asking until her voice is hoarse

punching and punching me 

with all her stubborn questions.

One day, yeah I’ll shut my mouth, but not before, I’ve said

the man walking down the street, is my brother.

I live on this same earth as the mother earth 

no one, with my enemy can condemn me

to be a barren island lost somewhere between the seas.

No one can lie and claim that I didn’t fight her

down to the very last drop of my blood.

Deeper than my skin and underneath my bones I have loved.

More than my mouth and all these words

more than this frustrated knot of my tormented sex.

I’m not going to die of sickness

or old age, misery or exhaustion.

I’m going to die of love,

I’m going to give myself to love,

it’s where we all come from.

I won’t be embarrassed by these empty hands

or this solitary cell that they call “Rosario”

on the lips of the wind my true name is

the Tree of many Souls.

Original poem by Rosario Castellanos. Translation and music by Alisa Amor