Worry

by Alexandra Tanner

I want to buy a SodaStream, but Poppy doesn’t want to support Israeli apartheid.

Poppy makes a disgusted face. “How dare you judge what I read in my personal time. What should I be reading, a fucking textbook? Freud? Sometimes I need comfort, sometimes comfort means turning off your brain. You of all people know that, mommy stalker.”

I remind Poppy that our childhoods were not traumatic. “My childhood was traumatic,” she says. “What, because you were, like—forced to wear tights to temple?” Poppy points a finger at me. “That was our mother policing my gender expression, and you know it.”

“The whole day’s over,” I say, feeling a loss. “But we, like—needed that. To just do nothing.” I feel like what I needed, actually, probably, was to go on a long walk and read something dense and boring and impressive, to drink some juice, to see a neighbor or pet a dog or make small talk with the barista at the coffee place on the next block.

“Memes don’t matter, Poppy,” I shout. Now I’m crying. Of course memes matter.