"Miles from Any Shoreline" | Sarah Kay | TED

I frequently miss entire days

caught in my brain’s spider webs

but if I happen to look up in time

to notice that the darkness

still has a little daylight left to swallow

I will ivy up the fire escape to catch

whatever embers of the day

are still slow dying behind New Jersey

and last week through the fog

of my loneliness I realized

the living room was slippery pink

which I knew meant

a light show must be on display

so with a quickness I reserve for emergencies

I scampered to the roof and sure enough

an explosion of upside-down clementine

cotton candy cloud wisps

was tie-dyeing the Hudson River neon

and I swear I am not a lightweight

but I was colordrunk immediately

dizzy with gasp and skyward-reaching

hoping my fingers might find

a bell I could ring

that would summon all of New York City

to look up! and west!

but there was no bell and no one to call

just my own astonishment

still willing to answer after the first ring

how predictable: one good sunset

and I release my nihilism

like rose petals behind a bridal gown

look I have married my cynicism

and renewed my vows

but it didn’t stop the streetlights

from coming on at the exact moment I passed beneath them

when nobody else was in the park to see it

like the whole city was winking

and yes I blushed

the way I do whenever someone beautiful flirts with me

I haven’t stopped thinking about death

I am just wringing every last jaw-drop

from the tissue between heartbreaks

On a long run outside the city

along a highway and

miles from any shoreline

I found a starfish alone on the asphalt

an unsolvable mystery

with no witness to corroborate

and there I was again

wandering the streets of

Bewilderville: Population 1

what else could I possibly do

but swing wide the doors of my delight

to this patron saint of unbelonging

fragile and whole and so far from home

if you too have been the one nobody asked to dance

I’ve got a starfish I’d love to introduce you to

and I don’t have any proof

but one time the wind

or my ancestors or unseasonal warmth

carried three hawks

to my kitchen windowsill

to rattle my coffin to cocoon

and two of them left

but one of them stayed

eyed me through the glass

like a promise or a dare

and so lately I am trying

to pick up

when the universe calls

(Applause)