(audience clapping)
- The year of no grudges,
or instead of writing a furious text,
I try a poem.
I know most people try hard to do good
and find out too late they should've tried softer.
I've never in my whole life been level-headed,
but the older I get the more level-hearted.
And I think we make gods who look like us for a reason.
I think in spite of it all, we trust we can be believed in.
When I don't believe in myself, I try to remember,
I have walked on water, like, 700 times in Maine,
in the dead of winter.
Where I come from, you can drive a pickup truck
from one side of the lake to the other,
and people have an unusually high quantity
of missing teeth and fingers,
but you can still count on them to buy whitening strips
and wedding rings because where I come from,
beauty is in the eye of anyone who sees what's missing,
but can't stop pointing to what's still there.
If there's no definition for love yet,
I think that's a good one.
I'm writing you, friend, on a day you did me wrong.
I'm only half a second outside the furnace of my rage.
And I'm trying to focus my attention
on all the teeth you still have,
the teeth I know you would happily knock out yourself
if it would keep you from biting anyone again.
And that's how mistakes work.
If you're loving the right kind of people.
And you're the right kind of people.
You've walked on water so many times,
you know grace is super slippery.
There's literally nothing anyone
is more likely to fall from, some sound advice,
I give myself like twice an hour,
wear knee pads on the way to your ego, Andrea.
Being right is boring.
Comforts only the tiniest parts of us.
And when it comes to hearts,
I want always to be a size queen,
because that's how I found you,
lifting the spirits of everyone around you
like a hot air balloon, just from the way you burn,
to be a better person today than you were the day before.
Burning to be better is my favorite quality on anyone.
And you are on fire like a gay men's choir,
rocking the halftime show of a football game.
I have been dancing in the end zone
since you taught me to start breaking,
every promise I have made to my pain
taught me my wounds will never, ever be bigger than I am.
Thank goodness for you, champion of the un-killable, yes,
dandelion, refusing to be cut for the bouquet.
Five minutes into our first conversation,
you knew I could take a punch
better than I could take a compliment.
And you talk to me about that only once and bam,
I was angel gossip.
There were God rumors spreading in my suddenly
un-heavied head.
I love you, because you've never had a mirror face,
because the truth is the last thing
you would ever try to fake.
So sometimes you look like a human scribble,
like a two-year-old has colored you in,
like you have too many feelings to stay inside
the lines of your own skin.
But that, friend, that is the masterpiece.
I love you because we both showed up to kindness tryouts,
with notes from the school nurse
that said we were too hurt to participate,
but we learned how wrong we were.
And weren't those the best days?
The days we learned how wrong we were.
And so, got to grow into our goodness,
throwing the peach pits of our old selves
into the garden to grow sweetness, sugar.
I pick you to be the captain of my chosen family tree.
I pick you to throw the party when I leave this world,
knowing I'm going to run death like a stop sign
and keep going.
I pick you to finish all my half-written poems,
even though you suck at writing poetry.
I pick you to finish this one, especially,
which is basically just a list of compliments
you'd be a hypocrite not to take.
So take it.
Before I remember, I'm mad at you, asshole, butt-knuckle,
nut-wad, only human on Earth
who knows exactly what I mean.
When I say God, I mean everyone down here
who understands why when I get to Heaven,
I will refuse to call it Heaven
if the people I love who put me through hell, aren't there.
(audience cheering)
Thank you so much, y'all.
Take such good care of each other.