10 Types of Tears Hamilton Made You Shed

Photo credit: Sara Krulwich

#7: Hoping That You Burn Tears

Honesty hour: I have not seen Beyoncé’s LEMONADE, but from context clues I’ve gathered and facts I have invented in my own brain, it is essentially *this* song for 65 minutes. Our scrappy, prideful lil Alex has gone and done it now. Eliza is out of town on a family vacation that Alexander, very busy writing like he’s running out of time, can’t squeeze into his busy sched. He does, however, find the time to: allow a woman to come into the bed he shares with his wife, do the dirty, receive an exploitative letter from said woman’s husband asking for money in return for keeping quiet about the affair, continue to rendezvous with this man’s wife WITH HIS KNOWING CONSENT, and then write about and publish it all in an attempt to defend his actions. What a dude! Totally honorable n stuff! Wowie!

Elizoncé, of course, finds out about his disloyalty BECAUSE HE PUBLISHED IT and is having precisely none of it. She refuses to make herself the victim in this scenario, knowing full well that Alexander’s actions were due to his inability to feel satisfied in his life and not because of anything she could’ve prevented or controlled. After a brief period of mourning and bargaining, Eliza chooses, instead, to erase herself from the narrative at hand, effectively removing any potentially-historic evidence of a broken heart. I’m not crying for her necessarily. I’m cry-laughing for all the men, past, present, and future, who think their garbage behavior is excusable or capable of breaking a lady. And I’m also cheering so hard at the incredible, empowering Eliza clapback that my eyes have started to water.

Songs to cry to: The Reynolds Pamphlet, Burn