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Tu the Judoka, performing at Rustbelt 2019 in St. Louis, MO.
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Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)
0:06
I was 20 when my aunt took her own life.
0:11
By which I mean a society had killed her.
0:16
By which I mean that waking up was just a process of feeling numb again.
0:24
And I’ve woken up in this quarter-life crisis
0:27
ever since my 23rd birthday.
0:32
Dear America,
0:34
I’ve been writing you this suicide note for the last nine years,
0:39
and I finished it in March.
0:41
But I’ve kept it in my notebook.
0:44
Maybe the effort of cutting the note from my notebook stops me every time.
0:49
Maybe the weight of handing you the note is always too much,
0:53
too heavy for hands concrete with grief.
0:57
And grief–
0:59
isn’t that the only thing keeping me opaque?
1:02
Maybe depression has already made a ghost of my body.
1:06
Maybe last goodbyes are best kept secret for those who love twice.
1:11
And me, a ghost boy in utero,
1:14
my noxious skin-deep anemia,
1:17
hold your memories past my hands as I wrap these heart-shaped photo boxes.
1:23
So, I’m saying I want to hug you one last time
1:28
before my body becomes ether.
1:32
I’m saying that the bomb counted to zero, and still it isn’t over.
1:37
I’m saying that suicide runs deep in my family’s history,
1:41
runs deep in the history of Southeast Asia,
1:44
in the depth of shotgun barrels.
1:46
But every time I stare into a double void,
1:49
I have flashbacks of my aunt and I
1:52
opening red envelopes of $50 bills turned suicide notes.
1:56
Her body still solid,
1:59
floating above the concrete as she holds me with transparent hands.
2:04
To love my aunt is to love a ghost,
2:08
to hold the past.
2:11
And to love a body is to love a memory
2:15
and know they’re not the same.
2:19
(applause)
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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