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Today’s poem was written in 2017, 7 years ago when I was homeless. There were a few recitals of this poem to strangers at the West Oakland Bart Station after midnight, and to the EMTs that were taking me to the hospital. I always prefaced it with; I’m on my way to NY to read this at The Apollo. After jail, the hospital was like a revolving door for me. I wrote this as an email response to a ticket giveaway. The Subject Line was: “Win 2 Free Tickets to Hamilton”. It was a mass email from a non-profit I volunteered for in Petaluma the year before. My response was this poem. I wrote it in a wellness center, RAMS, Downtown SF on their public computer and was able to print it there. I carried it from place to place and it became so warn and leathery that it looked like an artifact of epic poetic proportions. I recorded the piece last year when I had an artistic residency two blocks from that wellness center. I can’t say it’s aged well, but it’s certainly a time capsule. Being back downtown brought many memories, but it also made me realize how far I had come. One of the projects I worked on during last year was a video series where I went to the corners where I experienced these “street tales” and talked about my life in the actual location. I may have gotten a few worthwhile clips from filming, 6 years later looking like a shiny example of an affluent individual. Nobody knows your stories until you tell them. I’m still working on that series, but for now, there's this…

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