Shane koyczan-Crush

Crush

I've been thinking about the word crush, and how you are my first.

and how the worst thing that could have happened, happened when you and I were 10, and made to work together on a grade 5 presentation about animals.
I was so nervous
without ever having met you, I began to reminisce about how you fell in love
with me,it was you typical love story
school is attacked by zombie dinosaurs and shy kid saves the day

I think about the
was I was when I was younger
about how my hunger for acceptance drove me to cannibalize my fantasies of love
and loneliness believing everyone else would have to die just for you to love me

but in a role reversal I never expected you fingertip drew halos around the heads of snow angels, you saved me
alone together in the back of a library we studied each animal, secret society
and learned the use of the collective
Now example:

a murder of crows, God knows it sounds ominous but
this is how I learned about community,
we have names for the groupings that occur
even in the open ocean, a battery of baracuda, a shiver of sharks,
a school of fish, and I pondered the philosophy since barracudas and sharks are technically fish
wouldn't the term school of fish encapsulate then as well?

wasn't long before you went on to tell me that each term was in some way meant to
suggest the nature of each beast.
a destruction of wildcats, a crash of rhinocerouses
this is not meant to say that each
animal is considered in some way deadly, there are those who sound downright
lovely– a memoration of starlings
a Kindle of kittens, an exhaultation of larks
some were meant to sound industrious or presigious,
a parliament of owls, a labor of moles,

but I feel for the outcasts,
a smack of jellyfish, an implausibility of wildebeast, an apology of canadians.

you loved the classification of people,
believed that this is where the term underdog stems from, that sometimes we become more than the definitions that are thrust upon, us, that we can fight back– that a pack of wolves
pack of wolves as part of our ancestry, and the moment we embrace our history, we
become a new destiny we can rewrite a legacy because we are a storytelling of ravens

I began applying this concept to my life
deriving the conclusion that dickheads congregate in groups
and I cannot describe the solemn pride that was mine when I arrived home with a
report card that read Shane does not work well in groups.

told you this, and we both laughed.
and maybe it was my happiness that gave me away
betrayed my position to the three boys who'd made a hobby of making me cry, I still
remember the impact from when they pushed me over in my chair, and you, you could have just sat there, I wouldn't have been angry, but instead you decided to teach me that assholes come in bunches,
I learned this fact at the back of that library you help me up off the ground
to turn around and tell my attackers: "you guys are a bunch of assholes," we were ten.

If you ever wanna know how it feels to be saved,
just let someone save you, let someone rescue the smile drowning
inside you, it's not too late, I swear. see, I once hid my heart inside of a hat and pulled out
a rabbit that ran away just so I could say it was a vanishing act, tada!
but through you, i learned that real
magic is about making things come back, I know because when a ten year old girl
can go on to shock 3 bullies in the silence you know you have just
determined you like definition of beautiful, and all of the other wonderful instances in your
existence will volunteer to dim their brilliance so that throughout your life this moment
will shine brightest–

you made the best snow angels. laid them out in threes like paperdolls holding
hands and said it was because two people can feel alone. i think of the time
i would have destroyed the world just so i could be with you, I have grown since then.

I think often of a time when I placed a penny on top of a penny on top of the
railroad track and waited for a train to squish one coin into the other so I could give you a 2
cent piece because you were scared that someday they would raise the price of one cent candy.

these are the ways I loved you.

you were the only one to give me a card on Valentine's day.
granted, you, gave one to everyone.
but hard to believe you gave the best one to me, and the other boys were jealous of
a small card with a picture of a shark biting a heart saying, I think you're JAWSOME!
I wanted to draw you a card of a crab pinching a heart saying, I think you're crabulous!
my granddad advised me against it citing that in my teens I would understand why
that's not a good idea.

and now every time I see a lone snow angel, I think of you. so I offer you now a CRUSH of hearts, a sacrifice of body parts laid upon the alter of better times when the lines inside of a coloring book were only suggestions. sometimes you gotta scribble, gotta color the Sun purple just so you know what it feels like to be in charge
sometimes you gotta love just a little so you can start to live large, I offer you a lifetime of held breaths, a juggernaut of thank you's, a thimble of blues no whos who of I missed you's because I am made of memories, and here are the diamonds that I have kept polished just so I know what it feels like to treasure something.

I've been thinking about the word crush. and how you were my first.

and how the worst thing that could have happened, happened.
when you turned 11, and moved away. I didn't even get to say goodbye,
because you moved in the summer, and I returned to a school where your absence in my ears for all the years I had to deal with what it feels like to be alone

I've grown up since then.
But think often of the time when we were ten.
when you made snow angels holding hands.
laid them down side by side, that tied my definition of beauty to your memory.
We never even kissed, cause you probably never knew,

that god damn girl, I had the biggest crush on you.