Please Read

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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
My grandmother thought it was cute
So she let me keep doing it
Because you know, they were my favorite
It wasn't a big deal

Until I was seven years old

And a bad fall caused me to bruise my upper arm and shoulder rather severely
I didn't wana tell my grandmother what happened

Because I was afraid I would get in trouble
Because I was playing somewhere I shouldn't have been

One day in gym class the teacher notices the bruise
And I was sent to the principals office
Not long after that I ended up in another small room

With a really nice lady who asked me all sorts of questions about my life at home
I saw no reason to lie

Life was pretty good as far as i was concerned
So I told her, whenever I'm sad my grandmother gives me karate chops
This lead to a full scale investigation
And I was removed from my grandparents house for three days

And then returned when they finally asked me how I got the bruises
News of this silly little story eventually spread through the school
And when the students finally caught wind of it

I earned my first name
Pork Chop

To this day I fucking 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 getting bombarded by spit balls

But the school halls were a battleground

We found ourselves outnumbered day after 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 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

But 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
And 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 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
That 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 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 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 yeah
Some of us fell
But I wanna 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'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 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.