By Button Poetry
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Timmy Sutton, performing at Button Poetry Live, August 2019
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
I’ve been in love before. I’ve been broken before.
00:06
I’ve built sandcastles just to watch the tide roll in.
00:09
I’ve written poems in river water and butterfly wings
00:11
just to watch them open ocean hurricane away from me.
00:14
I have kissed a girl for too long
00:15
trying to make a moment last, a deserved rest.
00:17
I have missed the forest fire for the trees.
00:19
I have been in love, I have been broken, and I am okay.
00:24
Which is not so much to say, “Tis better to have loved,”
00:27
as it is to say, “Tis probably should have just like-liked
00:30
and gotten out of there, and like-liked a couple more people instead,
00:32
but I guess I’ll live.”
00:33
Which isn’t to say that love is bad, just that it’s not always the best option,
00:37
just that sometimes love is the guac
00:40
when you didn’t really have the money to get Chipotle in the first place,
00:44
and you really want it,
00:45
and you think that this guac would make your life so much better
00:48
but your maturity and affection and mental stability bank accounts
00:51
are running really low.
00:52
And sometimes we get the guac even when we can’t afford it.
00:55
And even though it tastes delicious, the next check bounces.
00:58
Sometimes we get the guac before we even know
01:00
our accounts are a thing, and, boom!, your credit’s destroyed,
01:02
and you didn’t even realize you’re making payments in the first place.
01:04
You’re standing on a bridge staring at the cherry blossom
01:07
drifting itself into Potomac, wishing you were a cherry blossom
01:09
or at least not the thing that you are right now.
01:11
Which is not to disparage the guac,
01:14
because the guac is and always will be delicious.
01:18
It’s just that you don’t always need it.
01:19
Sometimes you just need the burrito– both kinds of rice, both kinds of beans,
01:22
steak, spiced sausage, salsa, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, to go please, thanks.
01:25
Sometimes…
01:27
Sometimes you just need someone to hold your hand
01:29
and remind you you’re beautiful,
01:31
and worth someone thinking you’re worth something.
01:33
Sometimes that’s the better option.
01:35
And I know the phrase in question
01:37
is not about Alfred’s high school girlfriend,
01:39
it’s about his best friend.
01:41
My high school girlfriend was my best friend,
01:44
and I ordered the guac before I even got past the salsa,
01:46
and I don’t regret it,
01:47
because how can you regret something that tastes so good?
01:49
But I do sometimes wish I’d saved what I spent,
01:52
saved it for something with a little more permanence,
01:54
because, truth be told,
01:55
I don’t even really like Chipotle that much in the first place.
02:00
And that guac could have been anything.
02:02
That guac could have been a trip back to Texas.
02:04
That guac could have been a downpayment on a house I haven’t even seen yet.
02:07
I could have avoided a year of bounced checks and bridge edges.
02:10
That guac could have been something permanent, but it wasn’t.
02:14
Instead it was simply lovely,
02:17
simply delicious for a moment.
02:19
And that is okay,
02:21
and I am okay.
02:23
I am okay.
02:24
(cheers and applause)
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
