To This Day

When I was a kid
 I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
 Were the same thing
 I thought they were both pork chops
 And because my grandmother thought it was cute
 And because they were my favourite
 She let me keep doing it
 Not really a big deal
 One day
 Before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
 I fell out of a tree
 And bruised the right side of my body
 I didn't want to tell my grandmother about it
 Because I was afraid I'd get in trouble
 For playing somewhere that I shouldn't have been
 A few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
 And I got sent to the principal's office
 From there I was sent to another small room
 With a really nice lady
 Who asked me all kinds of questions
 About my life at home
 I saw no reason to lie
 As far as I was concerned
 Life was pretty good
 I told her, "Whenever I'm sad
 My grandmother gives me karate chops"
 This led to a full scale investigation
 And I was removed from the house for three days
 Until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises
 News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
 And I earned my first nickname
 Pork Chop
 To this day
 I hate pork chops
 I'm not the only kid
 Who grew up this way
 Surrounded by people who used to say
 That rhyme about sticks and stones
 As if broken bones
 Hurt more than the names we got called
 And we got called them all
 So we grew up believing no one
 Would ever fall in love with us
 That we'd be lonely forever
 That we'd never meet someone
 To make us feel like the sun
 Was something they built for us
 In their tool shed
 So broken heart strings bled the blues
 As we tried to empty ourselves
 So we would feel nothing
 Don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
 That an ingrown life
 Is something surgeons can cut away
 That there's no way for it to metastasize
 It does
 She was eight years old
 Our first day of grade three
 When she got called ugly
 We both got moved to the back of the class
 So we would stop get bombarded by spit balls
 But the school halls were a battleground
 Where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
 We used to stay inside for recess
 Because outside was worse
 Outside we'd have to rehearse running away
 Or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
 In grade five they taped a sign to her desk
 That read beware of dog
 To this day
 Despite a loving husband
 She doesn't think she's beautiful
 Because of a birthmark
 That takes up a little less than half of her face
 Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
 That someone tried to erase
 But couldn't quite get the job done
 And they'll never understand
 That she's raising two kids
 Whose definition of beauty
 Begins with the word mom
 Because they see her heart
 Before they see her skin
 Because she's only ever always been amazing
 He
 Was a broken branch
 Grafted onto a different family tree
 Adopted
 Not because his parents opted for a different destiny
 He was three when he became a mixed drink
 Of one part left alone
 And two parts tragedy
 Started therapy in 8th grade
 Had a personality made up of tests and pills
 Lived like the uphills were mountains
 And the downhills were cliffs
 Four fifths suicidal
 A tidal wave of anti depressants
 And an adolescence of being called popper
 One part because of the pills
 Ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
 He tried to kill himself in grade ten
 When a kid who could still go home to mom and dad
 Had the audacity to tell him "get over it" as if depression
 Is something that can be remedied
 By any of the contents found in a first aid kit
 To this day
 He is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
 Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
 In the moments before it's about to fall
 And despite an army of friends
 Who all call him an inspiration
 He remains a conversation piece between people
 Who can't understand
 Sometimes becoming drug free
 Has less to do with addiction
 And more to do with sanity
 We weren't the only kids who grew up this way
 To this day
 Kids are still being called names
 The classics were
 Hey stupid
 Hey spaz
 Seems like each school has an arsenal of names
 Getting updated every year
 And if a kid breaks in a school
 And no one around chooses to hear
 Do they make a sound?
 Are they just the background noise
 Of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
 When people say things like
 Kids can be cruel?
 Every school was a big top circus tent
 And the pecking order went
 From acrobats to lion tamers
 From clowns to carnies
 All of these were miles ahead of who we were
 We were freaks
 Lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
 Oddities
 Juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
 Trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
 But at night
 While the others slept
 We kept walking the tightrope
 It was practice
 And yes
 Some of us fell
 But I want to tell them
 That all of this shit
 Is just debris
 Leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
 We used to be
 And if you can't see anything beautiful about yourself
 Get a better mirror
 Look a little closer
 Stare a little longer
 Because there's something inside you
 That made you keep trying
 Despite everyone who told you to quit
 You built a cast around your broken heart
 And signed it yourself
 You signed it
 "They were wrong"
 Because maybe you didn't belong to a group or a clique
 Maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
 Maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
 To show and tell but never told
 Because how can you hold your ground
 If everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
 You have to believe that they were wrong
 They have to be wrong
 Why else would we still be here?
 We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
 Because we see ourselves in them
 We stem from a root planted in the belief
 That we are not what we were called
 We are not abandoned cars stalled out and
 Sitting empty on a highway
 And if in some way we are
 Don't worry
 We only got out to walk and get gas
 We are graduating members from the class of Fuck Off We Made It
 Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
 Names will never hurt me
 Of course
 They did
 But our lives will only ever always
 Continue to be
 A balancing act
 That has less to do with pain
 And more to do with beauty