This poem has been floating around on facebook for awhile and I
loved it when i first heard it and thanks to a comment on one of my
quotes i finally know who it was written by.
Shane Koyczan so her it goes-
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
toolshed. So broken heartstrings bled the blues, and we tried to
empty ourselves so we'd 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 class so we would
stop getting bombarded by spitballs. But the school halls were a
battleground. 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 the front of 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 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 eighth 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 antidepressants, and an adolescent being called
"Popper," one part because of the pills, 99 parts because of the
cruelty. He tried to kill himself in grade 10 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 could 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 moment
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 being 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 every 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
background noise from 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 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 is just debris left over
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, "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 some 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 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.