WEBVTT

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[PIANO PLAYING]

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Every morning, the maple leaves.

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Every morning, another chapter
where the hero shifts from one

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foot to the other.

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Every morning, the same big and
little words all spelling out

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desire, all spelling out,
you will be alone always,

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and then you will die.

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So maybe I wanted to
give you something

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more than a catalog of
non-definitive acts,

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something other than
the desperation.

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Dear so-and-so, I'm sorry I
couldn't come to your party.

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Dear so-and-so, I'm sorry I came
to your party and seduced you

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and left you bruised and
ruined, you poor, sad thing.

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You want a better story.

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Who wouldn't?

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A forest, then, beautiful
trees, and a lady singing love

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on the water, love underwater,
love, love, and soul.

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What a sweet lady.

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Sing, lady, sing.

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Of course, she wakes the dragon.

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Love always wakes the dragon.

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And suddenly, flames everywhere.

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I can tell already you
think I'm the dragon.

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That would be so
like me, but I'm not.

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I'm not the dragon.

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Who am I?

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I'm just a writer.

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I write things down.

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I walk through your dreams
and invent the future.

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Sure, I sink the boat of
love, but that comes later.

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And yes, I swallow glass,
but that comes later.

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And the part where I push
you flush against the wall

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and every part of your body
rubs against the bricks,

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I'm getting to it.

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For a while I thought
I was the dragon.

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I guess I can tell you that now.

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And for a while I thought
I was the princess.

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Cotton candy pink,
sitting there in my room

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in the tower of the castle,
young and beautiful and in love

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and waiting for you
with confidence.

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But the princess
looks into her mirror

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and only sees the princess.

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While I'm out here
slogging through the mud,

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breathing fire, and
getting stabbed to death.

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OK, so I'm a dragon.

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Big deal.

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You still get to be the hero.

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You get magic gloves,
a fish that talks,

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you got eyes like flashlights.

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What more do you want?

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I make you pancakes,
I take you hunting,

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I talk to you as if
you're really there.

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Are you there, sweetheart?

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Do you know me?

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Is this microphone live?

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Let me do it right for
once, for the record.

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Let me make a thing of cream
and stars that becomes--

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you know the story--

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simply heaven.

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Inside your head, you
hear a phone ringing.

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And when you open your
eyes, only a clearing

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with a dear in it.

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Hello, Dear.

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Inside your head, the
sound of glass, a car crash

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sound as the trucks roll over
and explode in slow motion.

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Hello, Darling.

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Sorry about that.

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Sorry about the
bony elbows, sorry

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we lived here, sorry about
the scene at the bottom

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of the stairwell and how I
ruined everything by saying it

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out loud, especially that.

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But I should have known.

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You see, I take the parts that
I remember and stitch the map

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together to make a
creature that will

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do what I say, or love me back.

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I'm not really sure why I
do it, but in this version,

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you are not feeding yourself to
a bad man against a black sky

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prickled with small lights.

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I take it back.

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The wooden halls like caskets,
these terms from the lower

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depths, I take them back.

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Here is the repeated image of
the lover destroyed, crossed

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out.

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Clumsy hands in a dark
room, crossed out.

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There is something underneath
the floorboards, crossed out.

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And here is the
tabernacle, reconstructed.

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Here's the part where everyone
was happy all the time,

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and we were all forgiven even
though we didn't deserve it.

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Inside your head, you
hear a phone ringing.

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And when you open
your eyes, you're

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washing up in a
stranger's bathroom,

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standing by the window
in a yellow towel

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only 20 minutes away from
the dirtiest thing you know.

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"All the rooms to the
castle, except this one.",

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says someone.

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And suddenly darkness.

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Suddenly, only darkness.

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[PIANO PLAYING]

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In a living room, in the broken
yard, in the back of the cars,

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the lights go by.

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In the airport bathrooms,
gurgle and flush,

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bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light, my hands

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looking weird, my
face weird, my feet

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too far away, and
then the airplane.

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The window seat over the wing,
with the view of the wing,

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and a little foil
bag of peanuts.

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I arrived in the city and
you met me at the station,

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smiling in a way that
made me frightened.

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Down the alley,
around the arcade,

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up the stairs of the
building, to the little room

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with the broken faucets, your
drawings, all your things.

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I looked out the
window and said,

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"This doesn't look that
much different from home.",

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because it didn't.

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But then I noticed the black
sky and all those lights.

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We walked through the house
to the elevated train.

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All those buildings,
all that glass,

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and the shiny, beautiful,
mechanical wind.

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We were inside the train
car when I started to cry.

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You were crying too.

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And smiling and
crying in a way that

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made me even more hysterical.

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You said I could have
anything I wanted.

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But I just couldn't
say it out loud.

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Actually, you said,
"Love, for you,

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is larger than the
usual romantic love.

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It's like a religion,
it's terrifying.

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No one will ever want
to sleep with you."

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OK.

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If you're so great, you do it.

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Here's the pencil.

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Make it work.

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If the window is on your
right, you are in your own bed.

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If the window is over your
heart and it is painted shut,

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then we are breathing
river water.

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Build me a city and
call it Jerusalem.

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Build me another and
call it Jerusalem.

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We have come back from Jerusalem
where we found not what we saw,

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so do it over.

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Give me another version,
a different room,

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another hallway, the kitchen
painted over and over,

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another bowl of soup.

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The entire history
of human desire

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takes about 70 minutes to tell.

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Unfortunately, we don't
have that kind of time.

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Forget the dragon, leave
the gun on the table,

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this has nothing to
do with happiness.

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Let's jump ahead to the moment
of epiphany in gold light,

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as the camera pans to
where the action is.

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Lakeside and backlit, and it all
falls into frame, close enough

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to see the blue rings of my
eyes as I say something ugly.

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I never liked that any either.

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More love screaming
out the wrong way,

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and I don't want to be the
kind that says the wrong way.

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But it doesn't work,
these erasures,

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this constant refolding
of the pleats.

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There was some nice part, sure,
all lemon drop and melon ball,

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laughing and silk
pajamas and the grains

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of sugar on the toast.

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Love, love, or whatever.

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Take a number.

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I'm sorry it's
such a lousy story.

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Dear, forgiveness, you
know that recently we

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have had our difficulties
and there are

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many things I want to ask you.

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I tried that one time,
high school, second lunch.

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And then again, years later,
in the chlorinated pool.

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I am still talking
to you about help.

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I still do not have
these luxuries.

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I've told you where I'm coming
from, so put it together.

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We clutch our bellies
and roll on the floor.

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When I say this, it should
be in laughter, not poison.

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I want more applesauce.

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I want more seats
reserved for heroes.

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Dear, forgiveness, I
saved a plate for you.

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Quit milling around the
yard and come inside.

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