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May 1, 2012
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I’m going to tell you a sonnet and it’s going to go by fast, so
you’re going to have to listen. It will have a moral. It’ll be tight
like a haiku. It will take place when I’m in twelfth grade and I’m going
to be the main character. It is 1994. In this sonnet I will
slip Chinese menus on people’s doorknobs
with red and blue rubber bands in Manhattan Beach, California
at the same time I imagine my classmates are slipping on condoms
to prevent themselves from making more of themselves.
This is what I do every day after school to help out my family.
This sonnet sincerely hopes you understand that even though
it’s about class and poverty and giving my mom an extra $75 a week
and all of that important stuff that it’s also about how this work,
walking from pink house to yellow house to gray house, gave me beautifully
sculpted calf muscles as well as the ability to write this sonnet.
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May 01, 2012