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To This Day Project 
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by Shane Koyzcan
Fill In the blanks, then press Score to check your answers
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 it was cute
And because they were my favourite
She let me keep doing it
Not really a big deal
One day
I realized fat kids are 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 about it
Because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
For playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been
A few days later the gym noticed the bruise
And I got sent to the principal’s office
From there I was sent to another small room
With a really nice lady
Who asked 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’m 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 nickname
Pork Chop
To this day
I hate pork chops
I’m not the 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 no one
Would ever fall in love with us
That we’d be lonely forever
we’d never meet someone
To make us feel like the sun
Was something they for us
In their tool shed
So broken heart bled the blues
As we tried to empty ourselves
So we feel nothing
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 get bombarded by spit balls
But the school a battleground
Where we found 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 a sign to 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
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
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 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 wave of anti depressants
And an adolescence of being called popper
One part because of the pills
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 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 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 each 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 a sound?
Are they just the background noise
Of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
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 yes
Some of us fell
But I to tell them
That all of this shit
Is just debris
Leftover 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
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 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 a 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 Off We Made It
Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
Names will never hurt me
Of course
They did
But our lives only ever always
Continue to be
A balancing act
That has less to do with pain
And more to do with beauty
https://medium.com/poem-of-the-day/shane-koyczan-to-this-day-baae83cf75ee
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 it was cute
And because they were my favourite
She let me keep doing it
Not really a big deal
One day
I realized fat kids are 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 about it
Because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
For playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been
A few days later the gym noticed the bruise
And I got sent to the principal’s office
From there I was sent to another small room
With a really nice lady
Who asked 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’m 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 nickname
Pork Chop
To this day
I hate pork chops
I’m not the 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 no one
Would ever fall in love with us
That we’d be lonely forever
we’d never meet someone
To make us feel like the sun
Was something they for us
In their tool shed
So broken heart bled the blues
As we tried to empty ourselves
So we feel nothing
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 get bombarded by spit balls
But the school a battleground
Where we found 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 a sign to 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
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
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 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 wave of anti depressants
And an adolescence of being called popper
One part because of the pills
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 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 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 each 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 a sound?
Are they just the background noise
Of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
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 yes
Some of us fell
But I to tell them
That all of this shit
Is just debris
Leftover 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
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 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 a 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 Off We Made It
Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
Names will never hurt me
Of course
They did
But our lives only ever always
Continue to be
A balancing act
That has less to do with pain
And more to do with beauty
https://medium.com/poem-of-the-day/shane-koyczan-to-this-day-baae83cf75ee
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