Worry

by Alexandra Tanner

The dog looks miffed. She licks her genitals. This we allow. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Poppy says. “I don’t know how I’m going to live my whole life. Like, waking up every day, wondering where the fuck my hives are going to be next, checking in on all my thoughts, trying to make sure I feel like me, like I even know who me is.” Poppy claws at her stomach. “I feel like whatever—whatever engine inside me, whatever engine is inside every human that lets us keep going, hoping we’re gonna, you know, maybe experience one nice moment each day, get a raise, eat some candy, it takes so much for me to feel that? And I can’t live like that, I can’t let that be how my life goes forever. And it’s not even, like—where they tell you that hardship makes you stronger—it’s not, it’s not teaching me anything about myself or, like, showing me something about my capacity for suffering, my capacity for grace. It’s just making me physically miserable, and existentially miserable, and it’s making me fucking fat.”