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When I was a kid I used to think that pork chops and karate chops were the same thing

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I thought they were both pork chops

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and because my grandmother thought it was cute and because they were my favorite

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she let me keep doing it.

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Not really a big deal.

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One day, before I realized fat kids were not designed to climb trees...

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I fell out of a tree and bruised the right side of my body.

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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.

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A few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise and I got sent to the principals office.

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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.

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I saw no reason to lie. As far as I was concerned,

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life was pretty good

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I told her,"whenever I am sad my grandmother gives me karate chops."

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This led to a full scale investigation

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and I was removed from the house for three days until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises.

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News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school and I earned my first nick name,

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Pork Chop.

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To this day.

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I HATE pork chops.

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I'm not the only kid who grew up this way

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surrounded by people who used to say that rhyme

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about sticks and stones... as if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called

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and we got called them all.

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So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us.

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That we'd be lonely forever.

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that we'd never meet someone to make us feel like the sun was something they built for us in their tool shed.

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So broken heart strings bled the blues as we tried to empty ourselves so we would feel nothing.

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Don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone,

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that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away,

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that there's no way for it to metastasize, it does.

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She was 8 years old.

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Our first day of grade three when she got called ugly

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we both got moved to the back of class so we would stop getting bombarded by spit balls

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but the school halls were battle grounds and we found ourselves out numbered day after wretched day

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we used to stay inside for recess because outside was worse.

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Outside we'd have to rehearse running away or learn to stay still like statues

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giving no clues that we were there

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in grade 5 they taped a sign in front of her desk

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that read,"Beware of Dog."

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To this day... despite a loving husband,

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she doesn't think she's beautiful

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because of a birth mark that takes up a little less than half her face

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kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer

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that someone tried to erase but couldn't quite get the job done

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and they'll never understand that she's raising two kids whose DEFINITION OF BEAUTY begins with the word "Mom".

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Because they see her heart before her skin.

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Because she's only ever always been amazing.

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He...

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...was a broken branch grafted onto a different family tree,

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adopted.

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Not because his parents opted for a different destiny

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he was three when he became a mixed drink of one part left alone

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and two parts tragedy.

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Started therapy in 8th grade.

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Had a personality made up of tests and pills.

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Lived like the uphills were mountains

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and the down hills were cliffs.

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Four-fifths suicidal,

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a tidal wave of antidepressants

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and an adolescences of being called "Popper"

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one part because of the pills

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ninety-nine parts because of the cruelty.

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He tried to kill himself in grade 10

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when a kid who could still go home to mom and dad

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had the audacity to tell him "get over it"

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As if depression is something that could be remedied by any of the contents found in a first aid kit.

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To this day, he is a stick of TNT lit from both ends.

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Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends in the moments before it's about to fall

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and despite an army of friends who all call him an inspiration

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he remains a conversation piece between people who can't understand.

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Sometimes being drug free has LESS to do with addiction and MORE to do with sanity.

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We weren't the only kids who grew up this way,

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to this day, kids are still being called names.

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The classics were "hey stupid",

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"hey spaz"

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Seems like every school has an arsenal of names getting updated

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every year.

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And if a kid breaks in a school and no one around chooses to hear

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do they make a sound?

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Or are they just background noise from a sound track stuck on repeat

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when people say things like, "kids can be cruel"?

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Every school was a big top circus tent

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and the pecking order went from acrobats to lion tamers

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from clowns to carnies.

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All of these miles ahead of who we were,

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we were FREAKS.

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Lobster clawed boys and bearded ladies,

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oddities juggling depression and loneliness,

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playing solitaire, spin the bottle....

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trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal.

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But at night... while the others slept,

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we kept walking the tight rope

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it was practice and yeah, some of us fell.

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But I wanted to tell them that all of this

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is just debris,

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leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought we used to be.

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And if you can't SEE anything beautiful about yourself

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get a better MIRROR

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look a little CLOSER

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STARE a little longer

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because there is something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit.

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You build a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself.

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You signed it "THEY WERE WRONG"

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Cause maybe you didn't belong to a group or a clique,

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maybe they decided to pick you last for basket ball or everything,

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maybe you used to bring BRUISES and BROKEN TEETH

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to show and tell but never told

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because how can you hold your ground.

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If everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it

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you have to believe that THEY WERE WRONG.

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they have to be wrong.

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Why else would we still be here?

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We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog

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because we see OURSELVES in them.

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We stem from the root planted in the belief that we are not what we were called

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we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on some highway;

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and if in some way we are, don't worry.

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we only got out to walk and get gas.

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We are graduating members of the class of "WE MADE IT"

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not the faded echoes of voices crying out, "Names will never hurt me."

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Of course... they did...

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But our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act

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that has less to do with PAIN

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and more to do with BEAUTY