WEBVTT

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I've been thinking about
forms, or rather I'm

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always thinking about forms,
and this particular poem

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was written as a series
of notebook entries.

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And I thought for myself as
a queer person, the journal

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or the diary was such an
integral space for me to speak,

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sometimes more fully, more
honestly, than even to my loved

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ones, and how that
space, that journal

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for so many people in the queer
community became a refuge.

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And I suppose I wanted to insist
that this form of the notebook

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was a form worthy of
art and literature,

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as much as the sonnet, the
sestina, or the ghazal.

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And so here we are.

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"Notebook Fragments"

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"A scar's width of warmth
on a worn man's neck.

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That's all I wanted to be.

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Sometimes, I ask for too much,
just to feel my mouth overflow.

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Discovery, my longest
pubic hair is 1.2 inches.

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Good or bad?

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[LAUGHTER]

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7:18 AM, Kevin
overdosed last night.

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His sister left a message,
couldn't listen to all of it.

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That makes three this year.

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I promise to stop soon.

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Spilled orange juice all
over the table this morning.

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Sudden sunlight I
couldn't wipe away.

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All through the night,
my hands were daylight.

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Woke at 1:00 AM
and for no reason,

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ran through Duffy's cornfield.

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Boxers only.

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Corn was dry, I sounded
like a fire, for no reason.

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Grandma said, in
the war, they would

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grab a baby, a soldier
at each ankle, and pull.

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Just like that.

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It's finally spring.

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Daffodils everywhere.

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Just like that.

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There are over 13,000
unidentified body parts

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from the World
Trade Center being

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stored in an underground
repository in New York City.

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Good or bad?

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Shouldn't heaven be
super heavy by now?

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Maybe the rain is sweet because
it falls through so much

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of our world.

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Even sweetness can scratch
the throat, Grandma said.

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So stir the sugar well.

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4:37 AM.

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How come depression
makes me feel more alive?

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Life is funny.

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Note to self-- if
a guy tells you

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his favorite poet
is Jack Kerouac,

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there's a very good
chance he's a douchebag.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Just personal experience.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Note to self-- if
Orpheus were a woman,

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I wouldn't be stuck down here.

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Why do all my books
leave me empty handed?

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In Vietnamese, the
word for grenade

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is "bom" from the French
"pomme" meaning apple,

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or was it American for bomb?

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Woke up screaming with no sound.

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The room filling with a
bluish water called dawn.

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Went to kiss grandma on
the forehead, just in case.

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An American soldier fucked
a Vietnamese farmgirl,

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thus my mother exists.

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Thus, I exist.

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Thus, no bombs equals
no family, no me.

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Yikes.

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9:47 AM, jerked off
four times already.

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My arm kills.

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My arm, like all arms, can kill.

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In Vietnamese, eggplant
is grenade tomato.

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Thus, nourishment
defined by extinction.

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I met a man tonight.

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A high school English
teacher from the next town,

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a small town.

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Maybe I shouldn't have.

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But he had the hands of
someone I used to know.

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Someone I was used to, the
way they formed brief churches

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over the table as he
searched for the right words.

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I met a man, not you.

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In his room, the bibles shook
on the shelf from candle light.

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His scrotum a bruised fruit.

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I kissed it lightly, the
way one might kiss a grenade

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before hurling it into
the night's mouth.

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Maybe the tongue is also a key.

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Yikes.

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"I could eat you," he
said, brushing my cheek

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with his knuckles.

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Some grenades explode with
a vision of white flowers.

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Baby's breath blooming
in a darkened sky,

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and across my chest.

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Maybe the tongue is also a pin.

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I'm going to lose it when
Whitney Houston dies.

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I met a man.

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I promise to stop.

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A pillaged village is a fine
example of perfect rhyme.

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He said that.

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He was white.

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Or maybe, I was just
beside myself, next to him.

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I forgot his name by heart.

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I wonder what it feels like to
move at the speed of thirst--

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if it's fast as lying
on the kitchen floor

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with all the lights off.

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Kristopher, with a K.

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6:24 AM.

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Greyhound station, one-way
ticket to New York City.

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$36.75.

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6:57 AM.

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I love you, mom.

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When the prison guards
burned his manuscripts,

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Nguyễn Chí Thiện
couldn't stop laughing.

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The 283 poems
already inside him.

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Kevin, I dreamed I walked
barefoot all the way

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to your house in the snow.

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Everything was the
blue of smudged ink,

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and you were still alive.

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There was even a light the shade
of sunrise inside your window.

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God must be a
season, grandma said.

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Looking out at the blizzard
drowning her garden.

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My footsteps on the sidewalk
were the smallest flights.

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Dear god, if you
are a season, let

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it be the one I passed
through to get here.

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Here.

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That's all I wanted to be.

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I promise."

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