"Miles from Any Shoreline" | Sarah Kay | TED

51,762 views ・ 2023-10-15

TED


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I frequently miss entire days
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caught in my brain’s spider webs
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but if I happen to look up in time
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to notice that the darkness
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still has a little daylight left to swallow
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I will ivy up the fire escape to catch
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whatever embers of the day
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are still slow dying behind New Jersey
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and last week through the fog
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of my loneliness I realized
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the living room was slippery pink
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which I knew meant
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a light show must be on display
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so with a quickness I reserve for emergencies
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I scampered to the roof and sure enough
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an explosion of upside-down clementine
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cotton candy cloud wisps
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was tie-dyeing the Hudson River neon
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and I swear I am not a lightweight
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but I was colordrunk immediately
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dizzy with gasp and skyward-reaching
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hoping my fingers might find
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a bell I could ring
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that would summon all of New York City
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to look up! and west!
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but there was no bell and no one to call
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just my own astonishment
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still willing to answer after the first ring
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how predictable: one good sunset
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and I release my nihilism
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like rose petals behind a bridal gown
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look I have married my cynicism
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and renewed my vows
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but it didn’t stop the streetlights
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from coming on at the exact moment I passed beneath them
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when nobody else was in the park to see it
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like the whole city was winking
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and yes I blushed
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the way I do whenever someone beautiful flirts with me
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I haven’t stopped thinking about death
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I am just wringing every last jaw-drop
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from the tissue between heartbreaks
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On a long run outside the city
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along a highway and
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miles from any shoreline
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I found a starfish alone on the asphalt
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an unsolvable mystery
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with no witness to corroborate
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and there I was again
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wandering the streets of
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Bewilderville: Population 1
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what else could I possibly do
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but swing wide the doors of my delight
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to this patron saint of unbelonging
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fragile and whole and so far from home
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if you too have been the one nobody asked to dance
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I’ve got a starfish I’d love to introduce you to
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and I don’t have any proof
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but one time the wind
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or my ancestors or unseasonal warmth
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carried three hawks
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to my kitchen windowsill
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to rattle my coffin to cocoon
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and two of them left
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but one of them stayed
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eyed me through the glass
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like a promise or a dare
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and so lately I am trying
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to pick up
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when the universe calls
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(Applause)
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