Gin To

It's Later

GIN TO

(Title taken from Plano by Will Arbery)

This is a mother-daughter play. Author does not write father-daughter plays because Daddy’s presence is suffocating. Daddy is impenetrable, Daddy cannot be hurt. Author has written many, many mother-daughter plays (one of them ended up as a script that was performed by actors; one of them ended up as a fake play—a prose-y, poetic thing they called flash autofiction; one of them a poem about art and killing the mother (in art); another one—a pantoum addressed to Mother’s lesbian lover from her childhood; many, many before that were gross and trauma porn-y and respectable). Author will write mother-daughter plays until they come up with a more gut-wrenching subject matter (((((not yours, their guts)))).

Lights up on MOTHER and DAUGHTER. Maybe they are two bodies weaving in and out of each other. Maybe they don’t touch. Maybe there is a large cast of them, a whole chorus of mothers and daughters. Maybe there is one actor reading both parts (because one of the two has cannibalized the other). Maybe they’re ghosts. They only live on the page.

MOTHER

Daughter, I have sent you countless letters. The pigeons said that you have received them. You were on a run when my love dropped on you and knocked you out. Please reply to my bruising love.

ALL

This morning, I was feeling handsy, so I started cutting you out of me.

MOTHER

I say ‘morning,’ but it was dawn, around two or three, before the sun came up. I still wake with night terrors but you’re not in this house anymore. There is no way to break into your bedroom to check if you are still sound asleep, or jostle you awake to ask if the driver ever touched you when I was at work.

There is a photo of our family: your father and I, you a little bundle of white tulle and a bald head. It was your first birthday. You wouldn’t remember. We threw the party more for ourselves—a piece of evidence to show our love. We took a lot of photos. People do the same when they fake-marry for green cards. Here, officer, we’ve loved her since the beginning.

DAUGHTER

I have never fully inserted anything into my vagina, not even a tampon. I go to a doctor for a pap smear and get refused because I am a virgin. (The doctor doesn’t want to break my hymen and get sued or cursed out). Now, I go to sleep fantasizing about breakage.

ALL

Maybe later, when I have a child, I will feel full.

MOTHER (at a young age)

It’s later. A life is growing inside me.

Actually, it’s the second life. The first one snuck out prematurely and died.

After the first one grew and escaped me, I felt even emptier than before. I ate the placenta. Now, I think, maybe I should keep you inside me

for

ever.

MOTHER becomes bedridden. She is possessed by the life inside her. Her body is not her own. And yet, she is happy.

Baby, my skin stretches around you. My loved one, I hope you’ll be a daughter. I want us to be close. I want you to get me. You’ll suck my tiny tits dry, leaving only two forlorn beans on the plane of my pale body. Later, I will purchase two heavy sags. It’s later. They hang from my chest like pomelos, shapely but unattractive.

DAUGHTER

...

Sometimes, cannibalism is okay.

Was that a joke? A meme? [Looks around] No one laugh––

MOTHER

Babies have a very particular smell to them. You have always been a difficult one. We went to a temple when you were born and asked the patron saints to watch over you. The residing monk gave you a name—Little . I sniff your head, my Little , my everything. You are an extension of me, so small in the palm of my hand.

MOTHER rocks her adult daughter in her arms. Adult DAUGHTER swings helplessly from side to side.

MOTHER

Dear Daughter,

I know you, better than you know yourself. Little , my magnum opus, my most prized possession, con cái là tài sản vô giá của cha mẹ. You’ll understand me later when you have children of your own. It’s later. Thoáng đây thôi mà con đã thành cô thiếu nữ rồi. You tell me you don’t want children of your own. You little , I was counting on you to love me. I kept telling myself, she’ll know, she’ll know, in a tongue I can’t explain, in blood utterances, she’ll understand the precise way I have loved her. Daughter, choosing to not have children is choosing to misunderstand me

for
ev––

DAUGHTER

I wonder what it's like to have a penis.

I want to rage-fuck a hole, want to ejaculate. I imagine it’d feel pretty spiritual. A cleansing of sort, like a shaken soda can making a mess. I want my liquids to run everywhere, colonize everything.

MOTHER

You speak in alien tongue.

In ice-cold logic that takes my breath away. My heart knocks like a fist on a door.

You mean for this to be a punishment. You mean to make me regret my life. My second life, you should NEVEr have left my womb

DAUGHTER

When I was in middle school, I used to pray to dead ancestors for the girl I liked to like me back. I prayed, said, please give me good health, good grades, good style, and boy validation—there are some very big ants on this bench. I watch them, thinking of killing them, then distract myself so I don’t kill them.
...
...
Art critics always want to kill the author. The artist’s intent is always irrelevant––

MOTHER (shaking her head)

Allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll this contamination. What happened? You were my perfect treasure. A fortune teller once said you will marry a foreigner.

Daughter, I’m dying

DAUGHTER

YOU"VEW BEEN
DYING SINXIE THE
DAY I WAS BORNNn

You’re always dying when I want to live.
...

MOTHER

...
...
...
Every day is a new day :)

Ta tu mấy kiếp mới được làm mẹ con nhau. Please don’t render me obsolete. I would like you to respond to my letters. The pigeons are waiting. I’m excited to teach you many things. I still see it sometimes—your bald head, your baby smell, coarse pitch-black hair sprouting like grass. I still run my fingers through it

DAUGHTER

The critic is still here. I want to BLEED all over the page.

(I can't imagine myself growing old)

I’ve scrapped everything she said. Now I have nothing.

DAUGHTER walks thirty minutes to Baskin Robbins to buy an ice cream cake. She pre-makes a batch of fifty waffles to freeze. She starts growing green onions in a tiny glass jar that used to contain chili oil. She buys a floor lamp that looks like a barren, black tree. Her forehead is still bruised. Later, maybe she will regret it. It’s later.

End of play.

Gin To (she/they) is a writer, theatre and visual artist based in San Diego. They are currently a first year MFA in Writing student at UCSD. You can check out their visual art or say hi on Instagram @gintonic2912!

THE AUTHOR ON MUSCLE MEMORY
It's Later meditates on Motherhood as the original site of love, intimacy, trauma, and selfhood. When I hear "muscle memory," I think of knowledge that bypasses conscious awareness and is internalized in the body. Detaching from Motherhood feels like unlearning something you know your body will never forget.

& ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE KALEIDOSCOPED
To put yourself through play, to diverge and transform and come back to the starting point ad infinitum.