Long Island Compromise

past the shiny brass steampunk aerators.

What is the word for when you know everyone is taking something too seriously, that the way it’s taking over your life isn’t normal, that it’s a little ridiculous, that it’s clearly what a bunch of rich kids stuck in a decade of ivory tower schooling need in order to think of themselves as real, living people? What is the word for the displaced ene

Jenny would remind you that it’s the ones who look back who turn into pillars of salt.

How the generation who worked and fought for our ability to live how we wanted to would be shocked to see not a painter, or a poet, or a concert violinist, or even a philosophy professor among us.

What is it about shame, that a teaspoon of it weighs so much more than a teaspoon of happiness or any other innocuous emotion? What is it about shame that it always feels like the truth? If she could only feel more of the shame, went her logic, she could get at the actual truth, and a solution.

“Honestly, I think you’re just obsessed with money, Max. There’s more to life than money.” She heard the last thing he said as she walked out, though, because he shouted it at her back. “Only rich people say that!”

It felt good to be with people who’d borne witness to the time passing, too, which is maybe the best way to describe a shiva.

the way a shiva’s job is to fill the crevices of grief with love.