Tell me something true about yourself,
he says,
as though we know each other well enough
for truth telling.
I don’t like onions, I reply in truth, especially
not raw ones.
He huffs, he puffs — not like that! he blows,
a real truth!
A better truth, he means, one that carries power
inside of it —
inside of me — a powerful knowledge he can press
against when angry.
I don’t like onions, I repeat myself; in truth,
all he deserves.
He throws up hands, exasperated, parlor game sunk
while I won’t play
nice.
He insists
on confessions, not just to pass the time.
If it’s bad
manners not to play, I’m happy to resign.
Helen Doremus is a screenwriter and storyteller based in Los Angeles. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Helen has come to most things in life slightly sideways of the prescribed fashion, accumulating odd bits of life as she goes. A choral singer, a kung fu practitioner, a Santa Fe Johnnie, a fiber artist, a high school dropout, a CASA volunteer, and a member of the asexual community, Helen’s first published work was a wordsearch celebrating the 25th anniversary of Sesame Street and her first film was as an unnamed child in a movie that was never released. She is a recent graduate of Antioch University Los Angeles and the screenplay she wrote as an independent study while attending, “Romanza,” won fifth place in the 2019 Launch Million Dollar Student Screenplay Contest.