WEBVTT

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I'm going to read a poem that--

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where is it?

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That Raquel mentioned
that is a true story.

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When I was a younger poet, I
had just graduated from my MFA

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at NYU, and I fell in
love with an older poet.

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And this is the moment
in that relationship

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that I realized that
I had made a mistake.

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No regrets.

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"Service."

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Somewhere outside
of Albuquerque,

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I was all fed up
with the stories

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about your ex-girlfriend's Guess
billboard in New York City.

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And to make matters worse, I
had to pee like a racehorse

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or like a girl who'd
had too much to drink

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way too far from home.

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You stopped at a
friend's body shop

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to talk about a buddy who was
stuck someplace in Mexico.

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You were talking,
pulling strings,

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and taking pulls
of a brown bottle,

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and no one told me
where the restroom was.

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So I walked back to where
the hot rods were displayed

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like dogs ready for a fight,
baring their grills like teeth.

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I was hungry.

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The air smelled
like hot gasoline

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and that sweet carnation
smell of oil and coolant.

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A girl pit bull came and circled
me as I circled the cars.

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She sniffed my ankles
like I was her kin

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or on some kind
of rescue mission.

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You were still
talking, not a glance

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in the direction
of me and the bitch

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working our ways around
the souped-up Corvettes

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and the power tools.

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The pit was glossy, well cared
for, a queen of the car shop.

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And when she widened
her hind legs

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and squatted to pee all over one
of the car's dropped canvases,

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I took it as a challenge.

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That strong yellow streams
seemed to be saying,

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girl, no one's going to
tell me when to take a leak,

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when to bow down,
when not to bite.

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So, right then, in the dim
lights of the strange garage,

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I lifted my skirt and pissed
like the hard bitch I was.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Always interesting when
your parents get the book.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Little things that you've taken
out, you can't razor blade out.

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They'll notice.

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Why does it go
from page 64 to 67?

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[LAUGHTER]