WEBVTT

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This was a poem that
one of the students

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today asked me to read.

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And I'm happy to do that.

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It's called, "The
Familiar Itch."

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And it's about--

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I have a younger brother.

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And I wasn't the
best older brother.

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And that's what
this poem is about.

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"The Familiar Itch."

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If I happen to see a kid
picking on his younger brother,

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and if the little one
looks cowed beyond what

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the moment warrants--
then I figure

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the one knocks the
shit out of the other

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when the parents are absent.

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Big brothers are
such small gods.

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Seeing a scene like that I
feel again the familiar itch

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to get the kid alone somewhere,
lean far into him with my eyes,

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and slap him hard.

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And when the whir in
his ear dies, when fury,

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shame, shock, and
fear all rise--

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to whisper, "That is how
he feels, every time,"

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and leave him there--

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the way my father, youngest
of two, left me, agape,

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the last day I beat my brother.

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