WEBVTT

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Some of you that
I met with today

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showed me poems that had
grown out of an exercise.

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And this is a poem
that grew out of a sort

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of self-imposed exercise of
trying to see how many times I

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could use the word
"because" in a poem

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without becoming
totally monotonous.

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And for those of you
who have forgotten,

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Stanley Kowalski is
the hero, so to speak,

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in A Streetcar Named Desire.

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"Because."

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"Because the night you asked me,
the small scar of the quarter

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moon had healed--

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the moon was whole again.

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Because life seemed so short.

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Because life stretched
before me like

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the darkened halls of nightmare.

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Because I knew
exactly what I wanted.

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Because I knew exactly nothing.

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Because I shed my
childhood with my clothes--

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they both had years
of wear left in them.

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Because your eyes were
darker than my father's.

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Because my father said
I could do better.

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Because I wanted
badly to say no.

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Because Stanley
Kowalski shouted Stella.

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Because you were a
door I could slam shut.

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Because endings are
written before beginnings.

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Because I knew that
after 20 years,

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you'd bring the plants inside
for winter and make a jungle

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we'd sleep in naked.

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Because I had free will.

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Because everything is ordained.

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I said yes."

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