WEBVTT

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And I'll finish with two.

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One shorter one, one
that's a little longer.

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All violence begins
on the playground.

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Is what I think.

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And this poem is basically
about this: "Headlock".

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"I was the cave bat.

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Wings flaring from my shoulders
whom the others followed down

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the hill.

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A girl leading all the
boys in thundering descent.

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So they had to make a
point of beating me.

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On that cold day, when
the drips and whistles

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of the snow creeping
in the doors

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kept us inside playing marbles.

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Where I won for keeps.

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His tawny eyed shooter, his
favorite steely, and all

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his blue eyed cats.

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All of a sudden he grabbed me.

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Using his only lethal move.

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And I was on my hands and knees
like a dog on his belly grabbed

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by the scruff of the neck.

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Yet he was not strong
enough to hurt me.

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So we froze in a tableau
of display and shame

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before the other second graders.

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I knew that I could
grab him by the head

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and flip him over my
shoulder onto the cold tiles.

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And knew too, it would
seriously hurt him.

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I was strong enough to do it.

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At seven, had already
pummeled the bullies

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who locked my three-year-old
sister out of the house.

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Had stood in the chicken
yard at the age of five.

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And waiting for
the bus, bloodied

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the face of the eight-year-old
who meant to teach me a lesson.

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But I paused that morning,
for whatever reason,

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thinking my way through
the fog of embarrassment

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into the deeper fog of anger.

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Where something cleared
into a brightness.

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A clearing within
me, a kind of meadow.

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Ground to stand
on, air to breathe,

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and mercy in the world.

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I let him go.

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He let me go.

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We let each other live."

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