POINTLESS HEARTS

“Rich kids should go to public schools. The mayor should ride the subway to work. When wealthy people get sick, they should be sent to public hospitals. Business executives should have to stand in the same airport security lines as everyone else. The very fact that people want to buy their way out of all of these experiences points to the reason why they shouldn’t be able to. Private schools and private limos and private doctors and private security are all pressure release valves that eliminate the friction that would cause powerful people to call for all of these bad things to get better. The degree to which we allow the rich to insulate themselves from the unpleasant reality that others are forced to experience is directly related to how long that reality is allowed to stay unpleasant. When they are left with no other option, rich people will force improvement in public systems. Their public spirit will be infinitely less urgent when they are contemplating these things from afar than when they are sitting in a hot ER waiting room for six hours themselves.”

Every night, it is always the same. Sobered by these tides of silence that carry every shape of your name. This unbroken, deep empty, that governs a millesimal of agonies. And at this point, this summit of your absence, I welcome them. I bare my back; I offer up my soul.

Please be patient with me, because the one I speak of never returned my heart.