WEBVTT

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So this poem is new.

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I've actually never
read it aloud before,

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which means this
might be a disaster.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Mother, you confess by
walking into a parking lot

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with a pistol, something
small enough to disappear,

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another lie inside your palm.

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The man, his tattered shirt,
a car long past warranty.

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It's three weeks before
Jesus's birthday,

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and the man's
children knew Santa

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was a father waiting on payday.

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There is a secret
in all of this.

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If asked, I would have
called this a mission.

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Each step foretelling
parole being

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scrapped for Clinton's dreams
because crime has always

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been the handmaiden to
politics, and General Motors

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laid off Detroit.

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Nothing can be denied, not the
pistol nor the man's quivering.

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Telling a story about innocence
won't conjure an acquittal.

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And after interrogation and
handcuffs and the promises

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of cops bless when an arrest
before the first church service

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ended, I become my father.

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The tape recorder sparrow
my song back to me.

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But guilt lacks a melody.

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Listen, who hasn't waited
for something to happen?

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I know people died waiting.

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I know I opened his hurt.

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I was lost in my fear.

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Strange how violence does that,
makes the gun hand vulnerable.

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I could not wait and had no
idea what I was becoming.

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Later, in the letter, my
victim says I was robbed there.

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The food was great
and drinks delicious,

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but I was robbed there.

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I might consider going back.

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Why would he returned
to a memory like that,

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as if there is a
kind of bliss that

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can ride a shotgun
with the awfulness

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of a handgun and a dark night.

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There is a Tupac song that
begins with a life sentence.

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Imagine, I scribble my
name on the confession

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as if I was autographing a book.

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Tell your mother that.

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Say the gun was a kiss against
a sleeping man's full head.

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Say that you might
have been his lover

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and that on a different
night he might have mourned.

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