I'll read a couple more poems from this book.
And then I'll read some new poems,
which is going to be great.
I'm going to really enjoy it and feel super confident
when I'm doing that because that is what my life coach told
me to say in these moments.
I don't really have a life coach.
I was thinking about--
this is before I wrote this poem.
But I was thinking at this time about how weird
it is that we talk about things going viral.
That was creeped me out.
I didn't like-- I was like, yuck.
It sounds gross.
And so I was thinking particularly about certain poets
I know who've had poems go viral and how weird that must feel.
It's sort of like having written happy birthday or something.
Suddenly, you're like cursed with this poem
that everybody-- yeah.
So imagine what it would be like to write
a viral poem, which obviously is never going to happen.
But so it was-- this is spoken from the point of view
of somebody who had the misfortune of writing
a viral poem.
It's called "The Black Bird."
I wrote a poem once.
I thought it was to be honest just OK.
Then it went viral.
Everyone loved it.
And soon enough, I almost did too.
Though, I also knew something nameless
I pushed down ever deeper.
I wrote more.
A whole book named after the viral poem.
It won all the awards.
People even really named a whole conference after it
And wept when they even thought about it.
[LAUGHTER]
It was far too much, so extreme,
It had to be real, what I had done.
Now, whenever I try to write, I feel
so afraid of feeling nothing.
So I just write house and war and DAPL.
Everyone smiles and says, yes.
But really, I just want to get high
And sit on the porch of my heart.
Yes, of my heart, that's what I said.
Where I can watch the city go by.
And imagine buildings have feelings.
But whenever I close my eyes and try to go there,
I only see a black bird with a yellow beak staring at me.
I keep waiting, but it just stares back at me
and does not speak even one word from the other world.