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[APPLAUSE]

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I'm going to take a
picture of you guys.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I shouldn't be the only
one in this platform.

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Say Camembert.

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Just going to lift this up
for you so you don't have to--

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My brother's in the audience,
and he's laughing at me.

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He's never been to
any of my readings.

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So, [INAUDIBLE],, hold on
to your seat, my brother.

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Thank you so much for being here
and thank you, everyone, here

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at the Poetry Center
for having me.

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I truly am happy to be with you.

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Amy, my partner, and
I want to go to Paris,

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but we're too broke.

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So I wrote this poem instead.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Paris Pride Parade."

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I don't know what else to say.

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Really it's the
middle of the night,

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and I'm sobering up from
too much almond liquor,

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trying to persuade my
body it's not dying.

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But it is at planet velocity,
velocity of falling in love.

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She's right next to me, and
I have landscapes inside me.

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Did you leave these
landscapes in here?

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Do you know that I can change
the size of all those memories

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just by the power of thinking?

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And if tomorrow I jump
off and at the same time

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think to jump back,
would I not just

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hang flying above
the bridge water?

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Well, the inside of
a rainbow is brittle,

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a kind of waiting room
made out of marzipan

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and an air of exclusivity like
watching a marionette theater

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do a Holocaust play inside the
top of the Arc de Triomphe.

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The inside of a rainbow is
peeling from too much pressure

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of how I love
death now the way I

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used to love roller coasters
that she and I are hurtling

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towards it and
breaking age blooming

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outward from the
imperceptible speed.

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Of all the things that make me
happy, this one is strangest.

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Oh, city of Paris,
body of spring.

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There's also this waiting
room like I imagined like when

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you're-- while you're waiting
to figure out that you're queer,

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there's like a waiting
room inside the rainbow.

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It's a re-imagining
this kind of doctor's

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office waiting room where
Reader's Digest and you're just

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sitting there waiting
to figure yourself out.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Finally you do.

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Hopefully.

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