By Button poetry


 



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Phil Kaye, performing at Icehouse in Minneapolis, MN.

 

Transcript provided by YouTube:


00:22

It is summertime



00:24

In the 90s



00:27

before the internet



00:29

and nine year old me



00:31

Is sitting on the couch with Ben, my best friend, who has a bowl cut



00:35

Like I do and I asked Ben what he wants to do and Ben says what he always says:



00:40

I don’t know dude, what do you wanna do?



00:43

audience: [laughter]



00:44

And I don’t know either because it’s already two months in the summertime and we have done everything



00:48

We think we can do, played basketball so many times Ben knows I will never go left



00:54

Stayed up until midnight to watch the r-rated VHS tapes my mother owns, pulled each other around in a wagon



01:01

Toilet papered every house on the street except for our own



01:04

audience:[ laughter]



01:06

And so we turn on the television and Indiana Jones is playing and afterwards we go outside



01:14

Because there is no internet and we stare at the big tree on our Street



01:19

the tree that is bigger than Ben’s entire house that we have never been able to climb because we are little kids but now



01:26

We are little kids that just watched Indiana Jones



01:29

audience: [laughter



01:31

and so we find some old bungee cords



01:33

and the hooks of those bungee cords find themselves into our belt loops and we tie the other side’s around the tree and now we are



01:39

Halfway up the tree, that is bigger than Ben’s entire house and I quietly think to myself: maybe I am Indiana Jones.



01:47

audience: [laughter]



01:47

and Ben quietly thinks to himself



01:50

maybe



01:51

This is a bad idea



01:53

audience: [laughter]



01:54

And my belt loops quietly think to themselves, what the fuck



01:59

audience: [laughter]



02:00

But we were all thinking quietly



02:02

audience: [laughter]



02:03

And so for a moment, it is silent and at nine years old I transform into things I have never been before



02:11

An astronaut floating in space,



02:13

the hummingbird buzzing in place, a beam of August light floating through the windows



02:19

and then I hear a crack which is not Indiana



02:21

Jones’s whip but my belt loops snapping apart shrieking relief and I fall all the way down the tree onto my back



02:28

and Ben rushes down and says, are you okay?



02:32

and I say,



02:34

I think so



02:36

and Ben starts to laugh and I start to laugh and I’m bleeding from my elbow, but it’s just a scrape



02:42

And that means that I am human and we are alive here tonight and we sit



02:49

Quietly till my mother comes searching



02:54

audience: [applause]



02:57

Thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you!



03:02

audience: [applause]



03:09

Y’all are nice as fuck



03:11

audience: [laughter]



03:12

This is a whole,this is as a thing here



03:16

last time I was here



03:18

I was walking around downtown and I’ve lived in New York for for nine years now and so you kind of have like a walking downtown face



03:27

and this person was like, excuse me, and when you’re in New York, if someone says, “excuse me” to you



03:32

The last thing you do is acknowledge their existence



03:35

But they’re like excuse me and they kind of like popped up and then we made eye contact and I’m like now I’m fucked



03:41

audience: [laughter]



03:41

And they’re like, I’m sorry. Can I, can I tell you something?



03:46

And I was like,



03:48

sure



03:49

And they’re like, you kind of look like Jesus



03:52

audience:[laughter]



03:57

It was like kind of unclear whether it was a compliment or not



04:00

audience:[laughter]



04:02

But thank you Minneapolis



04:20

Every great story



04:22

Has a beginning, middle and end not necessarily in that order



04:27

We are all great stories



04:29

[laughs]



04:30

Chapter 394 the boy hair still long fingers still too short



04:35

Is 98 years old



04:38

sits at a restaurant alone



04:40

The stranger sitting next to him is eating bread pudding, the boys favorite, the boy takes his fork



04:46

Sticks it in the strangers meal and takes a bite



04:49

Chapter 14 the boy is seven years old. He and his best friend have a great idea for a prank



04:54

They are sure they’ll not get caught. The next morning every house on the street has toilet paper in the front yard



05:00

except for his own



05:03

They get caught



05:05

audience: [laughter]



05:06

Chapter 146 and the boy and the girl live happily ever after



05:11

Chapter 231 and the boy and the girl vow never to speak to each other again



05:15

Every great story has a beginning middle and end not necessarily in that order. We are all great stories though



05:21

not all written as chapter books.



05:24

I know



05:25

There are hours not meant to be bound



05:28

When…w when we have scribbled too much in the margins to read our own page numbers, like the night you thought you were invincible



05:35

Ran out into the lightning storm with a million keys



05:39

Tied to a million kites and a clench in your jaw that said, “take me with you. Dammit. I dare you”



05:45

or the weeks



05:46

When you finally reached out to feel your father’s cheeks and



05:50

just found paper cuts.



05:52

I know



05:54

The nights we shatter our glasses to fall asleep



05:57

the afternoons we take photographs of our own shadows just to prove that we left a mark, but



06:03

I stay awake



06:05

reminding myself the wetness of my own lips



06:09

that I am a leaf off of the tree of my parents first kiss



06:13

and If I hold my shrubs to the sky I can still see their veins there



06:18

Every great story has a beginning middle and end not necessarily in that order



06:22

chapter 189



06:24

The boy too old now to celebrate his birthdays and too young to treasure them uses his fists



06:32

Punches his own reflection to see if it is real



06:35

Breaks his hand back into the opposite of a fist: a conch, shell of sinew



06:40

Puts it to his ear and can hear the ocean of his own bloodline



06:45

Stand up boy



06:47

Not just with your legs, be your own story, you magnificent page-turner, you 600 words per minute



06:53

You never stop to read the back cover, even though you know what happens at the end



06:59

Chapter 431



07:01

Once upon a time there was a boy



07:03

He’s not here anymore



07:05

But the branches he left all hold their leaves to the sky and you can see the outline of his shadow on the sidewalk



07:12

Prologue: once upon a time there was a woman and a man and the first night they kissed,



07:17

a seedling blossomed from the back of her neck



07:22

audience [applause]



07:27

Thank you you all.



07:28

thank you



07:29

audience [applause]



07:36

Um, before we do anything else. Can we give another round of applause for those amazing openers?



07:40

audience [applause]



07:43

Yeah!



07:45

that was awesome



07:49

For those three ladies that came up here and crushed it, also like if you do not know this already you may know this but



07:55

Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Twin Cities, have an amazing poetry ugh



07:59

Community here right here um so you do not need to go far. I feel a little guilty. I’m very honored that I’m here



08:07

ugh, but I’m also kind of like, you know, I feel like the fucking import, you know, like fuck and buy local, you know,



08:17

It is ugh..this is a really



08:19

ugh special night this book came out ugh about two weeks ago and



08:24

this is the the



08:26

This is the third show I’ve got to do with this book in the world and to celebrate it and ugh tonight particularly



08:31

I want to try a bunch of new poems from the book that I have literally never read before I may have read on..



08:37

one time before, um



08:39

One of the things I loved about this book was was getting to explore new things and new stories. That hadn’t been told



08:45

ugh to anybody and sometimes to myself had been locked away somewhere in there



08:51

And so this is one of those



09:03

I don’t remember the day my parents stopped speaking Japanese to me



09:08

Maybe sometime in kindergarten when I had trouble understanding people



09:14

and English



09:16

or maybe



09:18

After some glance, I don’t remember in a grocery store parking lot in California



09:24

Holding my father’s furry Jewish hand as he spoke Perfect Japanese to me



09:29

some confused housewife’s eyebrows



09:33

Shaming us back to this country or maybe during some early playdate



09:40

With a new sunny white boy in our living room. I just



09:44

Stopped speaking it back to them



09:47

By the time my sister was born years later. The old language had been locked away somewhere in the house



09:54

an aging holiday decoration we took out and looked at



09:58

in season



10:00

thought about tossing completely



10:03

I admit,



10:05

I fantasize sometimes about being a family that speaks their mother tongue at dinner in mixed company



10:11

We look over at each other



10:14

Lower our voice into an octave only blood can decipher



10:22

Toa tub [speaking in Japanese]



10:25

Don’t use your hands when you eat



10:28

Lately at the dinner table



10:31

My mother whispers a mundane incantation in Japanese to my sister



10:37

After silence, she says it again



10:40

speaks into a canyon with no echo



10:44

Utters it one more time, makes my sister say



10:48

in English.



10:50

I don’t understand what you’re saying



10:54

and suddenly my grandmother is there



10:56

shaking her head



10:58

opens her mouth



11:01

Is mute



11:05

audience [applause]



11:18

I got to write about all sorts of, of weird things in this book. I wrote a poem about ugh



11:23

faking sick



11:25

Which is great. Make some noise if you’ve ever faked sick in your life



11:28

audience: [cheering]



11:30

And it’s properly jovial



11:33

Can anybody say with like full confidence that they never faked sick ever?



11:37

If you’re too polite you can raise your hand



11:41

Yeah, no one I mean that’s okay to me it’s always been like a big red flag



11:45

You know like never faking sick is like you ever meet someone and they’re like out of nowhere



11:50

They’re kind of like oh, yeah, I never had a soda in my life. You know, like what the fuck?



11:53

audience [laughter]



11:55

And it’s always the same shit. It’s like oh my parents never let me have it and I don’t know



12:00

I just never developed a taste for it



12:02

Huge red flag right? because it’s, it’s one of two scenarios



12:06

one is that they’re lying



12:09

and at some point in their life, they’ve had a soda, even if they didn’t like it. They’ve had one



12:14

or two



12:16

Which is scarier



12:19

Fucking seven-year-old them is at their birth… like their friend’s birthday, at fucking chuck-e-cheeses or some shit



12:25

And like the orange soda is coming around and it gets to them like, they’re like “Oh, no, thanks. Oh, no, sorry”



12:31

My teeth are still growing in and



12:34

audience [laughter]



12:40

So



12:42

There’s a…[laughs] there’s a a series of poems in the book



12:47

ugh



12:48

That the internet pops up a lot in the book and ugh there’s a series of poems where the internet speaks back to me



12:56

In different ears ugh and it’s more fancily called in the book the internet speaks back to the author



13:02

Because I thought that might sound



13:05

more deep



13:06

audience: [laughter]



13:07

But this is: the internet speaks back to the author 2018



13:20

Tell me what you want ♪ every door you enter I



13:24

Will let you in ♪



13:26

my friend Rihanna said that



13:28

You want to see her? Here she is



13:30

Parts of herself she never meant to show you, but I got them for you



13:34

Is that too much?



13:36

Are you upset with me?



13:38

here



13:39

a man belly flopping onto a lake, a goat climbing on people doing yoga, a baby crying hysterically and now laughing



13:46

a magician revealing his tricks,



13:47

a photo of your old best friend



13:49

who called you three days ago.



13:51

Don’t call him now



13:53

Let me show you him



13:55

You like it better that way



13:57

Look how you two dressed up together that Halloween



14:01

He doesn’t want to do that



14:03

anymore



14:04

Except with me.



14:06

I won’t let him change. I promise



14:09

Why are you sad?



14:11

Here, the woman you kissed two nights ago.



14:13

She was recently in Florida. It was colder than she expected.



14:17

Here: her mother, two Huskies, little brother’s graduation, view from the old apartment,



14:22

best sushi she’s ever had, her bestie, bestie’s favorite bar, bestie’s untouched birthday cake, bestie’s new boyfriend, bestie’s trip to Chicago



14:29

Bestie’s photo under the beam, bestie’s girls weekend.



14:32

It’s okay



14:33

She shared it with me so that I could show you



14:36

here



14:38

The woman you loved years ago



14:40

see



14:42

The Marigold of her drink she had on her honeymoon



14:45

You don’t like sweet drinks, right?



14:49

Don’t leave



14:50

Let’s go to the temple



14:52

What an architect you’ve become?



14:55

There you are, your face wonderfully frozen, your funny joke it took you so long



15:02

But I’ll never tell



15:04

You’re safe here



15:06

with me



15:10

audience [applause]



15:21

Was thinking about this today



15:25

I was like walking around, you ever be like walking around all of a sudden you’re like, I wonder



15:30

what my middle school bullies were doing are doing now on Facebook



15:35

It’s always great.



15:38

They’re like inexplicably always the people that are out there like posting way too much on Facebook



15:43

audience [laughter]



15:46

My like main middle school bully has now inserted his middle name onto Facebook and it’s “legend”



15:56

So for example and I won’t use his name because I’ll protect his pathetic bully ass



16:03

audience [laughter]



16:05

But if you take like I just a dumb fucking name, I don’t know Brett Kavanaugh



16:11

audience [laughter and cheers]



16:14

Brett Legend Cavanaugh



16:18

audience [laughter]



16:20

I wonder if that’s what…



16:22

Joe, Joe is the guy



16:24

audience [laughter]



16:27

This is what I mean in some ways it is legendary. 15 years later, Minneapolis, speaking his name



16:35

audience [laughter]



16:41

This is a very short poem from the book



16:52

When you called to say



16:55

after our fifth morning together



16:57

That my travel was too difficult for you and this had to end



17:02

I was in the market



17:04

and had just bought a succulent



17:06

With round leaves like plump emeralds



17:10

Promising an easy and long survival.



17:13

I carried it home with both hands



17:16

Committed to its nominal care



17:19

The plant lasted a few months until a particularly long trip away the death of a plant so visual



17:27

the discoloration of the skin



17:30

The limp extremities laying to rest on the dirt.



17:34

I wondered aloud about repotting it



17:37

perhaps more water and closer attention



17:40

A spot in the apartment with direct sunlight



17:44

“Easier to just get another one” comes the new voice from the other room



17:52

audience [cheers]



18:08

So my my my grandparents come up very often uhh in my work and have really meant a ton to me



18:16

And this is a poem about my my American grandfather



18:19

uhh and to give you a visual of my American grandfather he had like this gigantic white beard



18:25

and ugh was totally bald



18:27

and and had like this amazing belly that he used to eat dinner off of like very proudly



18:35

um and he owned ugh a war surplus store that was really almost exactly this size



18:42

ugh filled with



18:45

Junk essentially [laughs]



18:47

that he had collected from around the country and really meant the world to him and that place meant a lot to me and I



18:53

I worked there and I grew up there in a lot of ways ugh and when he passed away about five years ago the store closed



18:59

And ugh I was thinking about him in that place



19:01

ugh and so I wrote this poem for him.



19:07

I keep doing this hair thing, but it’s really hot up here and I’m sweating



19:14

And it gets a nice



19:17

Okay, thanks



19:19

I needed that



19:29

My grandfather was not a strong man



19:32

But he knew what it meant to build



19:34

In 1947 after he and my great-uncle’s returned from the Second World War



19:39

They opened up



19:41

“Union War Surplus Store”



19:44

The store slogan: from a battleship to a hunting knife we have it or we’ll get it



19:49

My grandfather was not a strong man, but he kept his word. The place was half store half encyclopedia



19:56

Packed all the way to the ceiling with odd objects that somebody somewhere might want: steel toe boots



20:05

made of velvet



20:07

Fire-resistant overalls, a Czechoslovakian dental kit from 1964



20:13

packed



20:14

all the way to the basement



20:16

with people



20:18

That somebody somewhere else might forget about, but not here,



20:22

like Richard



20:24

Richard who who did not work there, but showed up every Sunday afternoon in his full military uniform



20:31

Never once bought a damn thing



20:34

But once brought his little girl, held her hand said this



20:39

Is what it smelled like when daddy was a hero



20:42

My grandfather was not a strong man, but he kept us safe



20:46

we walked together in the park one night



20:48

and a jagged man with more tattoo than skin walked up directly to my grandfather said “Hey old man!



20:55

My father used to take me to your store when I was a kid and you shook my hand once



21:02

Like I was a man



21:05

I still remember that”



21:08

My grandfather’s office was upstairs



21:10

But he liked to work down on the floor



21:13

Gave anybody a smile. Everybody called him cheerful Al



21:16

With his big belly, bald head, long gray beard, little kids would see him and go



21:21

ohhh!



21:21

Santa Clause!



21:23

audience [laughter]



21:25

Six years after a “Union War Surplus Store” opened its doors my grandfather had a son, my dad.



21:32

He is not a strong man, but he knows what it means to build. One summer when he was a teenager. He worked the store



21:40

Built this door in the back. It’s still there



21:44

40 years after “Union War Surplus Store” opened its doors. My father had a son.



21:50

I’m not a strong boy



21:52

But I’m trying to learn what it means to build



21:55

One summer when I was a teenager. I worked at the store, built this display that went all the way up to the ceiling



22:02

when I finished I



22:04

Ran to my grandfather, showed him what I had done



22:07

Very good Philip, very good. When I asked him what to do next. He handed me an old piece of paper, a beat-up pen



22:14

when I asked him what to do with it, he shrugged his shoulders and laughed



22:18

and I began to build



22:21

The only way I know how



22:24

audience [applause]



22:45

So I ugh



22:48

I wrote this poem a little while ago that that



22:51

touches on my my parents divorce and my parents split and it it touches specifically on the night that that happened umm



23:00

But there was a lot more pieces to that



23:02

and ugh and and one of the things I got.. a lot more little moments um and I got to explore those a little bit more



23:09

um In this book and this is one of them



23:11

um which is the the night



23:14

my parents split and and the first night we



23:17

Visited my dad in his apartment. He had to like



23:20

Get this new place to live



23:22

ugh this was like two nights after and we we stayed with him



23:38

My father, sister and I walk up the stairs to his hastily rented apartment



23:44

For the first time since my parents separation



23:47

the inaugural night of “dad’s time”



23:51

My father is quiet. There are many flights of stairs



23:55

We focus on the load we are carrying



23:58

rented lamps, rented sheets, rented plates



24:02

rented silverware



24:05

My parents break happened over just one night



24:08

Though my sister and I had heard creaking for years so loud It kept us up some nights



24:14

I would find out later that my father imagined this particular walk up the stairs



24:20

dozens of times before it happened



24:24

Envisioned every barbed comment my sister and I might offer



24:28

The punctures they would make in his tired body



24:31

How he wouldn’t be able to sew them back up



24:34

Why are there so many stairs?



24:36

These rooms are so small!



24:38

Why is everything so bare? Where are we gonna go play? Daddy I want to go home!



24:45

Of course



24:47

all I remember



24:49

was how quiet it was that evening for the first time



24:53

which is to say



24:55

the sound of wind



24:57

wafting through pipes



24:59

on some abandoned battlefield



25:03

The promise that there will be no more fighting, the strange relief of blood that has finally begun to dry



25:11

the way my father recalls it



25:13

We made it up the stairs and walked through the door



25:18

Flipped on the barren overhead light bulb, the walls dull white



25:23

I set down the weight that I was holding



25:26

looked around



25:28

said



25:31

Cool.



25:35

audience: [applause]



25:43

All right, y’all , I’m gonna do three more poems



25:47

Thank you all for being here ugh it is it is really special to have you all here to share this with in this beautiful space



25:54

I did not know



25:57

It was gonna be so nice.



26:00

I would have fuckin



26:02

not worn my sneaks



26:11

This is a ugh ugh



26:12

another poem ugh about when my grandparents ugh which is about my grandmother



26:18

Who was my favorite person growing up hands down.



26:21

she was married to to cheerful Al,



26:26

and ugh



26:28

you know in retrospect she was like the Robocop of grandmothers. She was like really primed



26:33

She was like a kindergarten teacher and a family therapist



26:38

and



26:39

Then was literally a teacher about parenting



26:43

But as like a nine-year-old, you’re just like you’re the fucking best person umm



26:49

I didn’t recognize your pedigree



26:51

audience [laughter]



26:53

ugh



26:55

and she really loved stories um



26:58

and always told them and always shared them and I think had a huge impact on on what I love to do now



27:05

and so this a poem for her



27:27

My grandmother’s mind



27:30

was a ballroom



27:33

Inside were her memories



27:35

Each one dressed for a celebration: that memory there in the white blazer on the dance floor



27:41

Is the memory of her wedding day.



27:43

He never stops dancing



27:46

That memory there in the long purple dress staring out the window



27:50

The day my father left for college



27:52

That memory there hunched over his food? The day she got her first cavity filled. My grandmother’s ballroom



27:59

always in motion



28:01

My grandmother used to tell me stories



28:04

Philip



28:05

remember when you and I made strawberry jam?



28:09

I pretend I don’t



28:10

So I can hear it again



28:12

Well, you were eight years old, inside my grandmother’s ballroom a woman in a red gown and mistletoe eyebrows clears her throat



28:21

carefully kisses fork to wine glass



28:23

Tells the story of a boy and his grandmother



28:27

How they picked out the reddest strawberries in the store



28:31

how they made so much jam they ate until it was summer again, each time the boy thinking



28:37

My nama and I made this



28:41

It started slowly, at first, there are things we can forget and no one notices



28:48

Philip where did we park the car? What was the soup of the day again? I thought the movie started at 8:00



28:56

Inside my grandmother’s ballroom



28:59

jubilant chaos



29:01

her memories drunk on a wine they had never tasted before



29:05

A cancer no one understood



29:09

Philip, what’s your father’s phone number?



29:12

We went to Hawaii together?



29:16

It’s your birthday today?



29:19

Her memories slurring their words



29:24

Staggering across the dance floor lifting their glasses for more



29:32

What day is this? Why am I in the hospital?



29:38

Where is my hair?



29:40

The last time I got to see her she could not speak eyes closed



29:48

Nama it’s me Phil



29:52

Remember the time you and I made strawberry jam? No



29:57

Let me tell you and my grandmother silently in bed squeezes my hand



30:04

Somewhere a woman in a red dress feet blistered still dancing taken by the music



30:15

audience:[applause]



30:29

So um



30:31

It’s been ugh a real



30:36

Shitty week



30:37

for for a lot of us to watch all these



30:41

things unfold



30:42

um and is unfortunately not a new thing um



30:48

It is a



30:51

a difficult thing to not get drowned under um and I’ve been trying to find little moments



30:57

uhh of of



30:59

Joy, and to things that appreciate that nothing to do with um



31:04

What may or may not be on television and so this is a new poem that I never tried



31:10

out loud before



31:11

uhh which is a little bit of an appreciation for



31:14

little things in all of you and it is it is still an amazing thing ugh



31:18

to travel to get on a plane and show up to a room full of people that



31:22

Care anything about what you do and any of the words you have so so, thank you



31:37

Whoa,



31:38

Be thankful for my mosquito lover



31:41

Leaving her kiss on my body for days to come



31:44

Whoa, be thankful that I am wanted



31:47

By the earth, if no one else



31:50

Waiting to hold my body again



31:53

Whoa,



31:56

Be thankful for the beasts who have laid down against their will so that I may nourish



32:00

Whoa, be thankful for the warmth of the full stomach, the summer sidewalk, my grandmother’s jiggling arm



32:08

Whoa, be thankful for the cool of the frothy Pacific, the crisp pillow, the popsicle now melting down my hand



32:17

Whoa, be thankful for the ridges in the redwood.



32:20

the guide, the sap



32:22

that scratched the black bear



32:24

Whoa, be thankful for each ring in the red bark



32:28

each wrinkle in the knuckle



32:31

Whoa, will be thankful for the wood above my head



32:34

that meets the water and does not rest



32:37

even when invited



32:40

Whoa, be thankful for my sister who meets the water from my cheek and does not rest even when invited



32:49

Woah be thankful for rest



32:51

with its unrelenting invitation



32:54

Woah be thankful for the day I finally acquiesced



32:58

and when I do



33:00

May the roots of a small plant



33:03

Find me in the earth



33:05

Hold me in its sprawling embrace say nothing of my name and survive the winter



33:15

audience [applause]



33:26

All right, y’all, um this is my last poem



33:31

Thank you so much for for being here. It takes a lot of energy to be up here on stage



33:36

ugh sharing poems, but I also know it takes a shit-ton of energy to be to be out in the audience



33:42

Listening to all of this and and digesting it all ugh



33:46

Particularly, if you got dragged here [laughs] does anybody just get like dragged here as a friend and are like what the fuck is going on?



33:53

audience [laughter]



33:55

When are they gonna start rapping



33:57

audience [laughter]



34:00

This is the weirdest open mic I’ve ever seen this dude’s been going on forever



34:04

audience [laughter]



34:08

After this finishes ugh, I’m gonna set up shop right here



34:12

Everybody gets a book



34:14

It’s amazing



34:16

Yeah, thanks for you know, I get you know, take the book if not hand it to someone on the street



34:22

You guys do that shit here, don’t you?



34:25

Like some real Minneapolis shit. Here’s some reading



34:29

audience [laughter]



34:35

But really thanks you all for being here. Thanks to the the folks who opened the many poets are in here



34:39

There’s many poets that I adore and look up to that made it here tonight



34:44

So thank you all for being here. It really means a lot to me



34:48

and enjoy yourselves, tip well, eat, the food is delicious! I had the fucking



34:53

shrimp something’s



34:55

And I was eating them. I was like, what the fuck?



35:00

Where are these shrimps coming from? You’re a mysterious place, Minneapolis.



35:05

audience [laughter]



35:06

Shit was fresh as fuck. Okay



35:10

Thank you all, this is my last poem, take care



35:20

My mother taught me this trick



35:25

If you repeat something over and over again, it loses its meaning,



35:29

for example



35:31

homework homework homework homework homework homework homework homework see nothing



35:37

Our lives she said are the same way



35:40

You watch the sunset too often. It just becomes 6 pm



35:44

You make the same mistake over and over you’ll stop calling it a mistake



35:49

If you just wake up, wake up. wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up one day you’ll forget why



35:54

Nothing is forever



35:57

she said



35:58

My parents left each other when I was seven years old



36:02

Before their last argument, they sent me out to the neighbor’s house



36:05

like some astronaut



36:07

jettisoned from the shuttle



36:09

When I came back



36:12

There was no gravity in our home



36:15

I Imagined it as an accident



36:17

And when I left they whispered to each other “I love you”



36:21

So many times over that they forgot what it meant



36:24

Family family family family family family family, my mother taught me this trick



36:30

If you repeat something over and over again, it loses its meaning



36:33

This became my favorite game and made the sting of words evaporate separation separation separation. See!



36:40

Nothing apart apart apart apart see! nothing



36:45

I’m an injured handyman now.



36:48

I work with words all day. Shut up. I know the irony



36:52

When I was young I was taught the trick to dominating language was breaking it down



36:58

Convincing it that it was worthless. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. See



37:04

nothing



37:06

Soon after my parents divorce, I developed a stutter



37:12

Fate is a cruel and efficient tutor



37:15

There’s no escape in stutter. You can feel the meaning of every word drag itself up your throat



37:22

s..s..s



37:23

Separation



37:25

Stutter is a cage made of mirrors



37:28

Every, what ‘d you say?



37:30

Every, just take your time. Every, come on kid spit it out. There’s a glaring reflection of an existence you cannot escape



37:38

every awful moment trips over its own announcement again and again and again until it just hangs there in the center of the room



37:45

as if what you had to say had no gravity at all



37:49

mom,



37:50

dad



37:52

I’m not wasteful with my words anymore even now



37:56

After hundreds of hours practicing away my stutter. I can still feel the claw of meaning in the bottom of my throat



38:03

Listen to me



38:05

I’ve heard that even in space



38:08

You can hear the scratch of an I..I..I..I..I..I..



38:11

I love you



38:16

audience: [applause]



38:19

Thank you all very very much. Thank you so much. Have a great wonderful



38:24

audience: [applause]





This post was previously published on YouTube.

***



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