our train is delayed and I am late for
lunch for the boy I like because his
smile makes me feel a little bit less
lonely and this feels like a working
definition for love these days in the
city where it's possible to be
surrounded by the warmth of over a
million apartment lights and still feel
cold the lights turn off and it's one of
those rare moments when we're forced to
look up from our screens and remember
that we exist outside of them they tell
us that a man jumped in front of the
train that he died upon impact so we
just sit there in silence as they remove
his remains from the tracks and some
part of us is happy because this this is
the first time in a long time we have
been forced to feel like something
greater than ourselves in the city were
sometimes it takes an accident just to
remember what the purpose of a body is
to begin with anyways the lights turn on
the train starts moving and the woman
next to me starts complaining asks why
this man could have taken a bottle of
pills before leaving the house how
selfish she was to delay others with his
own death and I want to hug her say
remind me the purpose of arm I want to
love her say remind me the purpose of
heart but I remember that this is
America where bodies fall on streets
like discarded leaves only touching
accidentally as we all tumble onto these
cities we grew up with circling on map
saying remind me happiness and somehow
convinced ourselves that they did the
same way we learned about the borders
between countries so well that we built
walls around them called them mine this
is America where pain is a ritual we
were required to conduct in private an
elaborate Symphony on mute to call it he
lived to be 86 years old not he hated
himself for thirty of them call it he
died in a sleep peacefully not the
stroke tore him to pieces call it
accident not no health care call it
casualty not calculation
to live in America is to live in a
constant state of illusion is to be
thirty people underground on a train
unable to hold one another and weep is
to sit there in silence until we can
forget just how much death is required
in the soil to birth such beautiful
denial and I want to text the boy
above-ground asked have you ever been to
a funeral with complete strangers but
instead I look at the woman next to me
the one who just told a dead man to die
more considerately and then I remember
that to live in America is to already
attend a funeral with complete strangers
how many ghosts does it take before a
cemetery can call itself a country to
live in America is to blame the dead for
their own death not the country for
creating the conditions that already
killed them before they caught up and
made things more clear for the rest of
us which is why when I tell the liberal
who wears words like dialogue and
diplomacy that I'm completely
uninterested in paying his taxes because
I do not want my coins to cause more
carnage and he calls me a terrorist
I understand which is why when I tell
him that I do believe in monsters who
come out at night call them men for
short and he tells me that I only
dressed this way because I want to be
bashed I understand which is why when I
tell him that the same women who started
his movement are still being murdered in
the same cities he is getting married
and calling it momentous and he gasps
and says this happens here in America I
understand the way we've been taught to
apologize for our pain to race our hurt
denim our violence to deny that we might
have difficulty waking up in the morning
that we may see a pill coming in the
place of the Train then we may wonder
what it would finally feel like to have
someone else empathize with our struggle
for once and our goddamn life what it
would feel like till the captive
attention of a funeral of strangers so I
run back on that train hug that woman
say I'm afraid to say remind me trust
sometimes silence feels like the highest
pitch of screaming say this is the first
time in a long time I've been forced to
publicly mourn death and there is
something beautiful about that say what
if we allow the pain to fill us a little
bit less empty but instead I will remain
silent on the train I will get off at
the next stop I will have lunch with a
boy I like because his smile makes me
feel a little bit less lonely I will
apologize for being late I will not have
a word for a type of loss that is so
distant it is intimate after lunch I
will get back on the train
I will remember I will soon forget
[Applause]