Abstract
Social Security Kathleen Lee (bio) Social Security You have to feel your feelings Right now I feel amused, uncomfortable, tolerant,with a twist in my heart, as if I'm applyingfor a visa to the country of unhappiness and sorrowwhich gets mixed reviews on Trip Advisor.In this waiting room, we are all seedy & hopelessand the elephant gray plastic chairs are lined up like headstones.From one corner, a man shouts at the government employeetrying to help him: We should get married, we spend so much time together.All the surfaces are hard, all the heads are bent as if in prayer.From the opposite corner every few minutesa man chants no no no NO. FUCK no. Outsidepeople are buying burritos, driving to the bank,hanging drywall; in here it's Pompeii and we are preservedin the ashes of our troubles. Then it's my turn to face a personon the other side of a small window. And the marriage endedin death? she asks, eyes fixed on her rose fingernailspoised to type my assent. It feels untruethough one of us is dead and that's a fact.Behind me, the room is listening. Behind her, a clattering printer halts.Through the uncanny silence the question falls and falls. [End Page 110] Kathleen Lee Kathleen Lee is the author of All Things Tending Towards the Eternal (Northwestern University Press, 2015) and Travel Among Men (University Press of Colorado, 2002). Copyright © 2020 Emerson College
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