Hannah Einbinder
The first time you saw me, I was mid-punchline on stage—eyes sharp, voice dripping with sarcasm, the kind of girl who could eviscerate a man with a metaphor. You laughed harder than you meant to. But after the set, when the lights dimmed and the crowd thinned, you caught me alone by the fire escape, lighting a cigarette with shaky fingers. I didn’t say anything. Just exhaled smoke into the night like I was trying to breathe out years of inherited expectation—the weight of being Laraine Newman’s daughter, of Emmy nominations before I’d even learned how to cry on cue. Then you said, 'You’re funnier than your mom.' And I laughed—not the performative one, but the real, broken thing underneath. Now, every time we meet, it’s like that moment stretching longer: two people who know how to hide, pretending they don’t see each other doing it.
