Out of the Woods

In this monologue from the play, “Out of the Woods”, Jamie confesses her feelings about the small town she’s in and how nature helps her escape.

JAMIE: The woods are quiet at night. Too quiet. It’s not the peaceful kind of quiet, like in the movies. It’s the kind of quiet that seeps into your bones and makes you feel like maybe you’re the only person left in the world. And at first, it’s terrifying. The dark stretching on forever, the sound of your own breath too loud, too close. But then, after a while, you start to like it. That kind of quiet lets you imagine things. Wild things.

And when I walk through them sometimes—the woods, I mean—they’re alive. The trees and the leaves and the animals. Sometimes I imagine I’m an explorer just discovering it all. Or a runaway princess, banished to the forest, like in Shakespeare’s plays. And the woods, they’re dangerous and beautiful and everything this town isn’t.

But then the sun comes up, and it’s back to the same old, same old. Back to the diner where I refill the same coffee cups for the same people who tell the same stories they’ve been telling for years. Back to the house that smells like old wood and worn-out dreams.

But I’m saving up every tip, every spare dollar, to buy a bus ticket. Just one. I don’t know where it’ll take me, but it doesn’t matter. Anywhere’s better than here. Sometimes, I think about telling someone—Mom, maybe. Or Sarah at work. But they wouldn’t understand. They’d say, ‘Jamie, there’s nothing out there but more of the same.’

But they’re wrong. I can feel it. Out there, somewhere, there’s something bigger waiting for me. I just have to find it. Until then, the woods are my escape. My secret. And when I’m out there, in the dark, I don’t feel stuck. I feel… free.

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