WEBVTT

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"Speculation:

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Observation of the heavens.

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The stars."

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"4 AM.

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I awake some days
believing the war is over.

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My body a missile shot through
night cloud, and the sun a star

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cast through blue dawn.

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Some days this is all I want.

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To be the sky.

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I was dreaming up a life,
dreaming up a mountain

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dreaming, myself out of bed.

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It was 4:00 AM when I
realized I was alive.

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One day already into the next,
it's too late to die, I said.

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It is far too early."

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"The flight of hydrangea.

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Of my first time flying,
I remember the sky.

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White clouds of
hydrangea and pink

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swirls that looked like smoke
cooling off the Florida coast.

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Sweet water it must be.

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And the green and peach houses
getting smaller by the mile.

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An infant latching
on to his mother.

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Mouth open for food.

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There's no food on
this flight, child.

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Something too heavy.

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Call it turbulence.

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Call it God.

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Call it to the wind.

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It was 7:00 AM when I finally
understood the danger.

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It's not the shaking
that does the damage,

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but what this all
means for the body?

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Perhaps we meet water.

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Maybe we all die.

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Maybe I get what
I was asking for.

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And suddenly all
the waiting stopped.

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The long wait of this plane,
of the sky, of my body.

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And when it did, I
asked for nothing else

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except of the air:
to, as it does, live."

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"Flight training.

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Sometimes I want to ask the
Earth was it beautiful here,

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without us?

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Or maybe you were lonely too.

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My nephew asked why this
paper airplane never

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really flies from here?

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And I asked the
same of our bodies.

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Is it the vessel?

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Is it the way that we're made?

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Was the sky all lilac
and orange for you too?

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How many nights have
I been at this window?

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And when did it become a door?

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Lately, I've been dreaming
evacuation, of catapulting

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to a bright moon.

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And all this grief turned to
dust, to ocean, to blue light.

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All this dreaming makes me
wonder if there's always

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been a sky this close.

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In the air, I am briefly starlit
and everything is alive."

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"1993 from the stars.

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If today is my
last day on Earth,

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please just understand
all year my world

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has been ending and
beginning again.

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And I don't know if I can
take another combustion.

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Another storm cloud.

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They say, this is how it
all began: as catastrophe.

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They say it was beautiful,
how it happened.

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First, she was just
an atom of light,

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and then everything
turned to dust.

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And suddenly we were all amber.

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Made more brilliant by her glow.

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For so long, I've wanted to
make a pageant of my grief.

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Make a field of all the
love I've yet to give,

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some kind of constellation.

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I've been trying, I promise,
learning about accumulation.

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The potential of
matter, what we can

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become when we're not alone.

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Every day I imagine what
this life could look

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like when I can see it too.

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Be a witness.

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All these years, I've
wanted to survive.

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Today, I want to be starlight;
tomorrow, something better.

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So if today is my last day on
Earth, please just understand.

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I only want to fly, and every
night I have dreamed of this:

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of claiming my rightful
place, of coming alive.

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You love me because I'm a star.

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Now, let me go be who I am.

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Static breaking light, entering
memory, entering stars, calling

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stars, calling stars, calling.

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Thank you all very much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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