I think I deal with my anger toward my relationship or about my

Host: The comedy club was nearly empty now, its dim lights flickering over sticky tables and the faint scent of sweat, beer, and laughter that had burned itself into the walls. The microphone stood alone on stage, its cable coiled like a tired snake. Outside, neon lights from the bar’s sign blinked through the half-closed curtains, washing the dark room in soft red pulses.

At a table near the front, Jack sat with a half-empty glass and a notebook full of scrawled words — confessions disguised as jokes. Across from him, Jeeny watched him with the quiet curiosity of someone who had seen too many smiles used as armor.

Jeeny: (softly) “Nikki Glaser once said — ‘I think I deal with my anger toward my relationship or about my relationship or about my friendships or my family — I deal with it on stage in a passive-aggressive way, and that can be very harmful if it gets back to them, which it always does.’”

Jack: (smirking) “Honesty’s a dangerous thing when you sell it for applause.”

Jeeny: “But it’s still honesty.”

Jack: “Yeah. The kind that burns down the house to keep warm.”

Host: The sound of a broom scraping the stage drifted through the room. The bartender was closing up, humming tunelessly, his boredom blending with the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.

Jeeny: “You think she’s wrong to do it? To turn anger into comedy?”

Jack: “No. I think she’s brave. But bravery and self-destruction are neighbors — they share a fence.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what art is, though. Taking pain and dressing it up so people will clap for it.”

Jack: “Yeah. We call it catharsis, but it’s really camouflage.”

Host: The neon light flickered, painting Jack’s face in fleeting crimson. He leaned back, eyes distant, the notebook still open before him. Lines crossed out, rewritten, crossed again — fragments of truth trying to behave like jokes.

Jack: “You know, I’ve done that too. On stage. Said something that wasn’t meant for the crowd, but for someone who hurt me. Dressed it up in punchlines so I wouldn’t sound bitter.”

Jeeny: “And did it help?”

Jack: “It felt like revenge at first. Then regret when they heard it.”

Jeeny: “You can’t make art about people and expect them not to recognize themselves.”

Jack: (quietly) “You also can’t not make art about the people who hurt you. That’s the curse of feeling too deeply.”

Host: The room hummed with silence now, the last of the audience gone, the tables littered with empty glasses — ghosts of laughter lingering like perfume.

Jeeny: “Comedy’s strange, isn’t it? It’s truth told sideways.”

Jack: “Yeah. You twist pain until it looks like something people can swallow.”

Jeeny: “But it’s still poison if you don’t handle it carefully.”

Jack: (nodding) “Exactly. You go on stage to purge yourself, but the audience isn’t your therapist. They’re just witnesses to your bloodletting.”

Jeeny: “So why do it?”

Jack: “Because it’s the only way to say what you can’t in person. A joke can travel where confrontation can’t.”

Jeeny: “Until it comes back to you.”

Jack: “It always does.”

Host: A faint rumble of laughter echoed from somewhere deep in the empty club — a recording still playing over the sound system. It felt ghostly, like memory mocking itself.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what Nikki meant. That every truth told in disguise still wants to be recognized.”

Jack: “Yeah. It’s like shouting from behind a curtain — you still hope the right person hears you.”

Jeeny: “But they always do. Pain has good ears.”

Jack: (smiling wryly) “That’s the trouble with being honest in public. The truth doesn’t care who it wounds.”

Jeeny: “You think art should be kinder?”

Jack: “No. But the artist should know when they’re bleeding on people who didn’t deserve it.”

Host: The bartender turned off the last light, leaving only the glow from the exit sign. The room was dim now, intimate in its tiredness.

Jeeny: “You know, I think the stage is just confession with lighting. The same guilt, the same search for absolution — just with better acoustics.”

Jack: “Yeah. The audience becomes your priest. They laugh instead of forgiving you.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s worse.”

Jack: “No. Maybe that’s human.”

Host: A long silence. The city sounds outside filled the quiet — car horns, rain, someone laughing too loudly down the street. Jack closed his notebook slowly, the sound soft and final.

Jack: “You ever think we only tell the truth when we can hide behind something? A joke. A song. A stage.”

Jeeny: “Because truth without performance feels too naked.”

Jack: “Yeah. And anger without humor just feels sad.”

Jeeny: “So we laugh to make it bearable.”

Jack: “And we call it art to make it forgivable.”

Host: The rain began again, soft and insistent. The neon outside blinked one last time before going dark. The club felt like a confession booth without walls — full of echoes, empty of absolution.

Jeeny: (quietly) “You think she’s right — that it’s harmful when the people we write about hear it?”

Jack: “Of course. But that’s the price of honesty. Art’s never harmless — it cuts both ways.”

Jeeny: “And you still do it?”

Jack: “Every time. Because silence hurts worse.”

Host: The camera would pull back slowly, the two figures small beneath the dim ceiling lights — the notebook closed on the table, the microphone standing solitary on stage like a relic of truth spoken too late.

And in that hushed, tender aftermath, Nikki Glaser’s words would echo — not as confession, but as revelation:

That art is the echo of what we couldn’t say directly,
and humor is how we hide the heat of our anger.

That the stage is both sanctuary and minefield —
a place where we bleed beautifully,
but the blood still stains.

And that every artist who turns pain into performance
lives between two audiences —
the ones who laugh,
and the ones who recognize themselves.

For honesty, no matter how it’s told,
always finds its way home —
and when it does,
it asks the same question every artist fears:

“Was the truth worth the hurt?”