WEBVTT

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"When you're alone."

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Can everyone hear me?

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All right, not everyone.

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Maybe, should I, I'm
going to try this.

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I'm double miked.

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OK.

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"When you're alone
and too tired even to

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turn on any of your devices.

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You let yourself linger
in a past stacked

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among your pillows.

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Usually, you are
nestled under blankets

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and the house is empty.

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Sometimes, the moon is missing.

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And beyond the windows,
the low gray ceiling

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seems approachable.

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Its dark light dims
in degrees, depending

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on the density of clouds.

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And you fall back
into that which

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gets reconstructed as metaphor.

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The root is often associative.

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You smell good.

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You're 12, attending
St. Philip and James

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School on White Plains Road.

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And the girl sitting
in the seat behind

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ask you to lean to
the right during exams

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so she can copy what
you have written.

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Sister Evelyn is in the
habit of taping the hundreds

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and the failing grades
to the cold closet doors.

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The girl is Catholic, with
waist-length, brown hair.

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You can't remember her
name, Mary Katherine.

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You never really speak,
except for the time

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she makes her requests and,
later, when she tells you,

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you smell good and have features
more like a white person.

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You assume she thinks
she is thanking you

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for letting her cheat and feels
better cheating from an almost

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white person.

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Sister Evelyn never figures
out your arrangement.

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Perhaps because you
never turn around

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to copy Mary
Katherine's answers.

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Sister Evelyn must think, these
two girls think a lot alike.

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Or she cares less about cheating
and more about humiliation.

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Or she never actually
saw you sitting there."

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After the RNC, a lot
of people sent me

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pictures of somebody sitting
behind Michelle Obama.

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[LAUGHTER]