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 favorite
she let me keep doing it.
Not really a bit deal.
One day before I realized fat kids were 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 scared I'd get in trouble for playing somewhere I shouldn't have been.
A few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise and I got sent to the principals office.
From there I was sent to another small room with a really nice lady who ask 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 am 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 nick name,
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 build 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 8 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 spit balls
but the school halls were battle grounds and we found ourselves out numbered day after retched 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 we were there
and in grade 5 I 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 birth mark 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 who's definition of beauty begins with the word Mom.
Because they see her heart before 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.
Live like the uphills were mountains
and the down hills were cliffs.
Fit for suicidal,
a tidal wave of antidepressants
and an adolescences of 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 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 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?
Or are they just background noise from a sound track stuck on repeat
and 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 clawed 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 nights while the others slept
we kept walking the tight rope
as practice and yes some of us fell.
But I wanted to tell them that all of this
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 is something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit.
You build a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself.
You signed it "They Were Wrong".
Cause maybe you didn't belong to a group or a clique,
maybe they decided to pick you last for basket ball 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 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 the 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 of 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.