Eissa Saeed
all my friends are sad— I could pull out my phone & read down the list I could show you texts in which we regularly confess the state of our shared millennial melancholy
“How’re you?”
“Slowly dying”
“SAME”
all my friends are sad— I could say we’re on the mend but none of us know what to do about it though most of us are brave some of us are terrified, swiping & scrolling, in search of a compatible interface so we don’t have to die alone
“I hate men.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Sigh.”
all my friends are sad— I could say we know exactly who we are I could tell you all about the things we’re gonna do if only we weren’t stuck in this godforsaken town, right where we were a decade ago
“I need a vacation”
“Aren’t you broke?”
“Yep”
all my friends are sad— I could go on about how we won’t ever change. Then how come I don’t like you but I wanna be just like you? maybe it’s that we all crave attention not because we want eyes on us but only because we want to know someone’s there.
“When will death come?”
“Soon, I hope.”
all my friends are sad.
Eissa Saeed is a poet, screenwriter, and playwright whose work employs communication tactics to create narratives that challenge sociopolitical ideas. His play Home/Sick, centred around a Muslim-American family reconciling with queerness, was shortlisted for the 2018 Theatre503 Playwriting Award. In 2019, Eissa was a Qalambaaz Screenwriting Fellow and developed a feature script titled In His Name. By day, Eissa works as a media strategist at New Heights Communications and also with the UNFPA to promote family planning services in Pakistan. Eissa holds a BA from Bennington College and an MA from the George Washington University.