WEBVTT

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OK.

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I think the next one.

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So this one-- as you know,
my family is Jamaican.

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And the thing about being
an immigrant in this country

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is this country isn't sure how
they feel about you being here.

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And it seems consistently so.

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So I think that presents-- it's
interesting I think being--

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interesting is a kind
word-- but interesting

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being an immigrant
in this country

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and having chosen to come here
and the relationship you have

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to it and then also being
a child of immigrants,

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having not chosen that
and the relationship

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that you have to it.

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It's a kind of a tenuous one.

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So this poem is sort
of my considering that.

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I'm thinking about
that relationship.

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And I consider it the sort
of my complicated love

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letter to America.

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"The Free World."

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I bind my old grievances
to a helium balloon.

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A long memory, I have
been warned, is a curse.

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Everywhere I go
someone has something

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they must say about you.

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Nobody knows who we are.

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Wouldn't you say nobody
agonizes like we do?

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Elsewhere is a
promise and a threat.

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I have been prescribed
compassion of the wrong sort,

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and so I am alone.

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I am invisible within you.

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Seeking companionship,
I spend my afternoons

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before the windows of pet shops
and strangers trying to decide.

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After all, I was told I
could have everything.

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I thought this was
meant to be, a romance.

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I was delivered here
in order to love you.

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I was delivered here
and ordered to love you.

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If we could be friends, I
wore this new dress for you.

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