Marlon James

And the man says to me, tell me about yourself.

And I have a script when everybody, anybody asks me that.

I go into how I love my dad, but I hate him.

And, you know, we're not together.

We're not close.

And, you know, I've come to a certain point of acceptance of him.

And I don't

I hate him, I just dislike him very much.

And I was very, very pleased with this answer.

I was a sexually confused dude with daddy issues, like half of the audience here.

And I was very satisfied with this answer.

And then he said to me, tell me about your mother.

And I froze.

It never occurred to me at all to think about my mother.

And it just came all at once that everything I was living at that time, the lie I was living, the ways in which I was not being myself was all in this effort to never disappoint my mother.

And I realized at that point, my entire life was built around the sham of not displeasing my mom.

And I opened my mouth to say all of this and a scream came out.

And I couldn't stop screaming.

I couldn't stop bawling.

I was crying.