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(calm music)

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- Heaven is all goodbyes, 
but I hope it's soft.

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Softness of skin, 
softness of thought.

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Call me soft and I'll 
send you a heart.

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Won't do fisticuffs, 
just brisket cuts.

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When people called me soft, 
I found I'd be ashamed.

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Now I call myself soft, 
to rebuke that disdain.

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Autistic, sensitive 
to everything.

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Autistic, we don't 
speak the same.

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Autistic, in every poem I sing.

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Autistic, in every song I cry.

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Using tears to wipe ink 
smudge from my pants cuffs.

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Drowning in words, 
living for life.

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Heard it once told that life 
is wasted on the living.

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And death isn't something 
we should dwell on.

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All I know for certain is

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life exists on the fence 
between hope and hopelessness.

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It's like a seesaw, 
being Autistic,

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swinging from joy to a meltdown.

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Sensory overwhelm, need 
something soft to calm me down.

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The good Lord blessed 
me with soft skin.

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So, I caress myself 
for comforting.

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My masseuse, 20 years 
in the game, once said,

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I had the softest skin.

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The softest skin 
she'd ever felt.

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Like velvet, like felt.

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I took the compliment.

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But deep down, I knew 
Autism was to thank.

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Autism and Allah.

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One of the primary features of 
EDS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome,

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is velvet soft skin.

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EDS is associated with ASD.

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I hate how white people 
attach syndrome or disorder

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to everything they 
don't understand,

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and I hate how 
negative connotations

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are attached to 
those attachments.

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Which perhaps explains 
the negative connotations

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I attach to my-same- 
self-said-Said-Saciid-name.

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What's a shorter 
word for connotation?

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How about, bro pass me the 
cream cheese and a light.

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Pass me the hookah and a sprite.

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Pass me fatty food and bring 
to stummy great delight.

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Better yet, pass me a 
prescription for my ADHD.

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So I don't have to self-medicate 
just to get through life.

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And if you can spare it, 
pass me that peace of mind.

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Right behind two lost 
lovers stuck between time.

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And the metronome which 
hangs over us all.

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Ticking, tocking, 
clicking, clocking.

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Bombs over Baghdad, 
bombs over Baidabo.

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Bombs over Kyiv, bombs 
over Kurdish Peshmerga.

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Young (beep), ever a learner.

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Never have I clutched a burner.

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That's a lie, but I 
was born in the land

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where AKs are cheaper 
than grains of sand.

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And sand is all we understand.

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The sun is all we have.

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The Blackness of our skin, 
protecting us from it.

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White people colonized 
Africa but 400 years

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after the Dutch erected 
limp castles on our land,

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their descendants' skin 
still peels off in the sun.

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They can't even 
protect skin from sun,

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yet we're the inferior ones?

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Anyway.

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None of that matters anyway.

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I just pray I get to 
see heaven one day.

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Wish heaven on earth 
for all my people.

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Wish heaven was 
easier to get into.

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But as the Prophet Peace 
Be Upon Him once said,

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the road to heaven is 
paved with hardship,

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the road to hell 
paved with ease.

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So if this life 
is any testament,

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heaven just may 
be in our future.

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At least we hope.

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And hope is all I 
have these days,

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when nights turn to day, 
turn to nights again.

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When the blood moon 
serenades my waking dreams.

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When Larry Levis' ghost 
writes living poems in Fresno,

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Modesto, San Diego.

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Takes the form of dirt 
devils, sand tornados,

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uses wind to carve 
poems about nothing

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into still more nothing.

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Migrant farmers step 
over stillborn poems

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as they pluck fruit 
destined to be tossed

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from suburban fridges.

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I got cousins back home

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who've never seen 
strawberries or fridges.

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I don't know what that means,

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but I should probably 
cherish something.

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At least while I still can.

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Lord knows they could 
be on their way.

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Shoot, I think they knocking 
on my door right now.

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No knock raid.

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Ain't that how the 
last brother got tased?

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I mean shot.

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Shoot, I mistook 
their guns for tasers.

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Ain't that what they said

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about the brother they 
killed before him?

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He was shot, a nine 
millimeter Glock taser?

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This is Minnesota, bro.

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All we export is frigid 
ice and police lies.

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Murder too, tho.

102
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We export a lot of murder here.

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Shoot, am I next?

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I wonder what lie they'll 
export about my murder,

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about my death.

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I pray I'm not next.

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And every one of my brothers 
prays he's not next.

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In a country that values 
our bodies only in death.

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Where we know every traffic 
stop could be our death.

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In the land of never 
quite making rent.

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Hmm, this place is hell.

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But is that such a bad thing?

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Hell is hard and 
hardship leads to heaven.

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And heaven is all we 
have to keep us going.

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Heaven is all goodbyes, 
but I hope it's soft.

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I hope heaven is 
softer than this life.

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And I hope I see you 
on the other side.

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(cheerful music)

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- [Announcer] This program 
was produced in collaboration

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with the Center for 
the Art of Medicine

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at the University of 
Minnesota Medical School.

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And funded by the Minnesota 
Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund

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and the citizens of Minnesota.

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(calm music)