Hey little spaz boy
You know you are having problems
You little spaz boy
You are as spastic as they come
Oh yeah little spaz boy
Please keep teasing the ******
Please leave him alone you see
This little spaz boy
A boy who is itchy from within
You see it don’t mean a thing
When he can’t do anything good
But the little spaz boy
Runs up and down singing a song that’s great
He started being spastic from the age of 8
But deep down he is my mate
You are a spaz boy maaan
For the rest of your life
You see he tried to be a hooligan to be left alone
But that never worked because
He was getting teased all day long
Hey little spaz boy
People find it’s fun to tease him
You little spaz boy
Just wants to muck around
And not be an adult you see
This little spaz boy
Is such a baz boy
He could be ******* as sin
This little spaz boy
Really needs to get in the shower cause he is a bit smelly
And everybody thinks he is
But that little spaz boy
Loves life better than his bullies

There’s a Devil of a night each year, the night of Mr. Haim!
When the devilish and ghoulie ones come out to play their monster’s game.
And why some would seek to trick or treat on this scary day of dead?
Careful now cause gremlins, trolls …sprites and wolves, will offer up their dread!
Quiet, shush, I hear a pack of creepy-crawly boots…

Ra’atan-Zu and the Boogedy-Boo!
And the skeleton bones, clink…
And the skeleton bones, clink…
The skeleton bones clink.

That crafty-smith of horns and hooves is spying on these kiddies,
As Ra’atan-Zu and the Boogedy-Boo are hunting strays to do their dastardly-ditties.
Quiet, shush, I hear a pack of creepy-crawly boots,
And their costumes, oh-so-foul, the evilest of suits!
And there she is, that little girl who can’t keep up, in a tasty mushroom ensemble.
And the skeleton bones clink in her path to give her quite a tomble!

Ra’atan-Zu and the Boogedy-Boo!
And the skeleton bones, clink…
And the skeleton bones, clink…
The skeleton bones clink.

And Sammy Haim, that smithy-devil, a ***** hoof -igniting ghoul’s desire,
He’s howling out, demanding now, “Put that child to the fire!”
And little does he know, no little bit, not even a small clue,
Neither Ra’atan-Zu nor Boogedy-Boo intend on giving him his due!
For once a year on Halloween they get one night to spaz,
Get down and *****, wild and crazy and play a little jazz!
That little mushroom of a girl will play a tiny fiddle,
Ra’atan-Zu and the Boogedy-Boo, a jazzy duet with child in middle!'

Ra’atan-Zu, Boogedy-Boo and a little girl too as they get down actin’ a spaz! Playin’ all night, howling to the moon and kickin’ out some wicked jazz!

And the skeleton bones, clink…
And the skeleton bones, clink…
  The skeleton bones clink.

His Funeral was today.  Well, his wake rather.  It was in his old colonial home on Elm Street, a bought of irony that Paolo would never get.  Anyway, it was an odd set up at his house. Family and friends downstairs in the living room, acquaintances and honorable mentions meandering through the hallways clearly more interested in the intricate little floral patterns that adorned the wallpaper than how his family was holding up.  The company of the house was split, everyone either legitimately full of sorrow, or completely full of ****.  In everyone’s grasp either handkerchiefs or hand grenades it was as if the invitation read “Come see it to believe it!” In the study across the hall a small memorial was set up.  Big cards, tons of photos, some flowers, anyone who actually cared stayed there and stared at his once happy face, who knew what it looks like now.  
He had died of some sort of overdose, one that destroyed his heart, so he would have looked fine in an open casket.  The doctors say it was *******.  I don’t believe them.  Paolo had his fun in college, ***, *****, sure, but coke?  There’s no way.    The services weren’t to take place for another two hours, so his family rolled him onto the second floor balcony.  It was actually his dad’s decision, something about a “disgrace” and not wanting to look at his face.
Apparently his mom had felt bad letting her dead son chill on the porch for a few hours, so she rolled him across the hallway to his own room him and kind of laid him out on the bed, as if letting her baby boy take his eternal sleep where he’d have had most of his shorter ones.  
Picturing him lying up there was the first negative connotation I ever had with the image of him on that bed.  He had that kind of headboard that when we started getting at it the bed would hit the wall with each rhythmic movement.  Steady and almost tribal as our bodies danced to the ever increasing beat of a talking drum.  Our clothes off and our skin glazed with sweat it was like my own personal method for getting high. Now don’t get the impression that our relationship was based purely on a physical connection, we’d been dating for three and a half years, the love was there all right.  
We had met in the strangest of ways, through a mutual friend that I was kind of, almost, sort of, but not really having a “thing” with, you know?  Cisco was his name.  So we were together one day and he, being the adorable spaz that he was, had forgotten that his own birthday party was that same night.  He asked if I didn’t mind tagging along, it was a celebration for him and two friends whose birthdays followed his in sequence.  
This had been going on for several weeks, and I know we weren’t dating but I still had a feigning interest in the guy.  So we arrive to this girl, Cristina’s, house and I noticed this other boy almost immediately.  In a backwards cap and pair of boot cut jeans he was jumping around, tossing his arms, right in the middle of reciting some hilarious anecdote to any of his friends who hadn’t heard it yet; even those who had seemed riveted.  He was so full of charisma and with such assurance.  Besides that he was kind of cute so, though pathetically, I tried flirting with him for the rest of the night; he didn’t really catch on.  We left that night without having exchanged more than ten words between each other, I thought I’d never see him again, turns out I was wrong.  
“Broadway CAREols.  Show others that you care by enjoying a night of with your favorite blend of Christmas ditties and Broadway biddies” And before you ask, Yes, I did come up with that title, I think it was great and it was at the top of each flyer in big red and green letters and if you asked me “If you could do it again…” I would do it the same each and every time don’t judge me.
It was a show I had to direct for a community service project and of all people he played the piano for my show.  Only me and several other girls made up the cast, and I knew how easy it was to mistake a positive attitude for flirtation when it comes from a handsome young man.  He ran the music over three or four times individually with each cast member before the night of the show, but when Paolo and I worked that night he stopped me and just sang. For me.  
Each night after rehearsal I had to give him a ride home, I was a year older and thus had my license a year sooner.  I’d never mind allowing myself more time to bask in the glow of his perfectly understated confidence, so I was happy to oblige.  Technically Connecticut state imposed a law forbidding new drivers under the age of 18 to be on the roads past 11 at night.  My mom, being a government employee, really stressed this one.  His house was a solid ten minutes drive from our rehearsal spot, and my mom often warned me to allow myself enough time to get back home before 11.  What started as me beginning to drive faster and faster during the trip home ended as a routine each night, where I would finally allow him to step out of my car just as the clock read 11:00 PM.  
Our first kiss was in that car, my first uncontrollable breakdown was in the car, hell the first time he told me he loved me was in that car…right at the lip of the driveway.  I learned to ride my brakes perfectly to the point where I could park just beyond the edge of the sidewalk yet just before the point where the porch light would flash on, reminding his mother that his son is out past ten on a school night.  It was so warm.  I’ll never forget the cadence of his laughter as it trailed off, seamlessly merging with that next statement “Anna, I love you”.  I could have sworn the porch light went on.  

Now I know it may seem like I don’t care for his being dead right now, but the thing is, I did something.  I did something really bad.

You see, I had mentioned that he was up in his room, right?  Still, stiff, simply waiting to be brought down in a few hours as the catalyst to another round of tears.  Now don’t get me wrong, I did my share of crying the night before.  He’d been in the hospital for only a few days and when they told us he was dead…God, he was just so young, two years into college, the friend you have who was chasing his dreams down with a brand new pair of sneakers.  That kid the whole town knew because of the multitude of silly town functions he attended.  He would always insist.  Every other weekend was one silly thing or another “Oh you’re gonna love this.  Two words – ‘Poetry showdown’.  If you can’t take the heat, don’t stay in the kitchen”
The day of the funeral I just had to see him.  I snuck up the two floors to his room on the third floor.  As I neared his door at the top of that final flight of stairs each creak of the floorboard seemed to resonate through the house, followed by the hollow silence of my stillness.  I paused with each step as if stepping in larger spans of time would make what I was doing seem less suspicious, should someone hear me.  Upon touching his doorknob I felt an immediate chill. I couldn’t tell whether it was some ghostly feeling of being in the presence of a dead person, or the fact that the thermostat had been turned down to keep his body prime for viewing.
I held my breath as I opened the door, and blinked a couple times when I saw him.  He was wearing what everyone else was in downstairs, black tuxedo and a dark tie.  I know he would have scowled had he known he was going to be buried in a constricting penguin suit.  We had a conversation about it, you know?  Out on Academy Hill, right in the middle of a picnic. We were in enough shade that his transition lenses were only half tinted, and when he sat up, it was abruptly.  Pushing my head off his chest he kind of leaned in to the cemetery in the distance and pointed out how sad it is that no one really ever gets the chance to choose how they want to spend the rest of eternity dressed in.  He would have preferred his puma sneakers, still white after seven months, his striped green and blue socks, his only pair of ripped designer jeans and that express shirt he loved so much because it showed off his natural physique.  
I moved closer, inching toward him at first, then quicker as I broke through a place where I just relaxed, and for a moment he wasn’t dead.  For a moment he was just sleeping, all ready in his fancy get up simply waiting for me to wake him up.  I found myself sitting next to him, my eyes cast downward, half expecting his gaze to meet mine, and while stroking his hair I got an idea.  It happened quickly, and I kind of have a problem with acting upon my impulses, it’s something he used to criticize me on that and I never really improved.  Without thinking I threw open his drawer and pulled out what I knew he’d have wanted to be dressed in, should he have gotten the chance to create a will concerning his death-wear.  As I pulled of his starchy shirt my hand brushed against his chest, chilled as the room was, eerie as nothing else.  I finally got him down past his pants and saw, of all abominations, that he was outfitted in a fresh pair of tighty whities.  God, it’s as if the funeral home was asking to be haunted by his tormented soul.  I found his single pair of silk boxers and reassembled him in the way I knew he’d have wanted to be.
So great, now everyone will think I’m a loon for having desecrated his body.  Well what do they know; I’m the only one who ever really knew him! But how the hell would I explain it to his parents when the pallbearers march in and there he is, laying face up in his street clothes?  
This wasn’t right.  He didn’t belong here, he needed to be somewhere comfortable, someplace he enjoyed, not sitting upstairs in a suit with the lights off and the air blasting.  He hated the cold!  Certainly he would have hated a hundred people staring at his dead and lifeless shell, and he would, without a doubt, hate being six feet under, pushing daises at the Nichols Road cemetery.
I wrapped my arms around him, and as the building adrenaline made my breaths deepen I inhaled several moments of ecstasy off his clothes that still clung to his musty scent.  I lowered him gently to the floor and took care as I dragged him across the carpet to his door.  After fumbling, for what felt like several minutes, on his door handle I got him onto the awning introducing the stairs.  I even made it down the first flight of stairs without freezing up at the tiniest creak when I heard someone coming my way.  ******, they must need to use the bathroom, why couldn’t they just use the one downstairs like any normal person?  Without hesitation I throw open up the window near bottom of the stairs, heaving myself and him, sending us tumbling onto the garage roof.  Ignoring my probable bruises I spring up and slam the window behind me while taking special care to hide us both as far away from the bathroom window as possible.
Sitting up there, my heart racing, I felt his hand in mine and it was probably because my palms had gone clammy but I swear for a span of time he was alive again.  I closed my eyes and felt the breeze in my hair and was transported to a place where I spent a single moment in each day we ever shared.  Each beach side sandcastle, each afternoon spent cloud gazing, those same afternoons turning into evenings of star gazing, each and every night spent utterly and irrevocably lost with this silly boy that chose to love me.  
I was torn from my oasis as I heard the bathroom’s occupant exit and continue downstairs.   Knowing that my van was parked on the other side of the street I pushed his body as close to the edge of the roof as I could without his falling off and let him be. I hopped back inside and ran downstairs, but not before flying through the doors of the memorial and interrupting his mothers eulogy.  In an act of sheer brilliance I mustered a few tears and tore out the back door.  Everyone figured I was just so taken away by his death that I couldn’t stand to be there anymore.  Who knew anxiety could be mistook for remorse so easily?
I ran down the driveway, losing the grace I had composed in my dress in high heels the moment I slammed that door.  I jumped into Emmet, my van, because only crazy people drive around in un-named vehicles.  
I pulled out of my spot, nearly ruining the paint job on both my and his Uncle Ed’s car.  I flew my trunk door open and set the third row down, the general idea being his landing securely in my back seat.  I reversed up the driveway with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a leopard right back to the edge of the garage where I had tossed his body.  I jumped out of my car nearly forgetting to put it into park before I shut off the engine.  I barely got halfway around my car before becoming transfixed on his hand, hanging off the gutter as if reaching for mine to grab hold and pull him to sweet salvation.  I jumped up a few times, unsuccessfully before I took off my shoes and got a good running start.  I flew up, grabbed his arm and ****** towards the car in a sideways downward motion.  He nearly cracked his head on the pavement coming down, he would have too if it wasn’t for my body breaking his fall.  I got up, too distracted by the sheer volume of my own heart to realize the pain I felt.  I shoved him into my back seat, slammed the trunk, stumbled into the car, stuck it in reverse and stepped on gas without even putting my shoes back on.

I told you I had done something bad.

hi dudes


i wanted to be a hooligan, or was it a young dude who wants to party

you see i would go out at night, and be a real smart, you see my mates

would say, i was like their mob, but i hated my father saying, he hated to

be like my mob, so i called him a great big old fogie ,because that is what

he seemed to be, you see i don’t think dad can understand why his own flesh

and blood could tease him like this, i never really wanted to be an adult to him

no, please don’t make me, you see at present people are saying i am still a young dude

i am still an old fogie, because they wanna get me back, i hated being treated like

a yeah mate yeah kid, ya see, i would prefer to be treated right, you see i know my dad

is saying i am a fool, but my mates liked the way i used to tease my dad, so they joined right in

but i wanted to tell them that i wanted to tease dad all by myself, and when someone called dad

a great big old fogie in the club, i looked at him and said quietly to myself, way to go buddy

you see people are trying to get me to do what i used to do, like if i go into an expensive hotel

they will say, shut up, your still a young dude, buddy, and i said, yeah the young dude that enjoys

5 star hotels, yeah, and dad would try and get rid of my man and take him for a wander, and

some people are taking my cool kid for a bit of a wander, you see, i feel like i am being kidnapped

by the men saying as they tease someone, and then they say i might tease him in a minute

but he is still a hooligan or a friend to the poor, you see i also hear my friends try and be a street kid

so i can get teased by the families, and i don’t want to get teased by the families, and every time i be a

cool young dude, i see my old mates treating me like a shy person, as i am watching the very brave

**** fanning, about to do a press conference, **** he is brave, you see my mates are trying to reach in

to me and play with my itchy skin, you see maybe i was trying to be a street kid back then, so i don’t get teased

and maybe i was trying to be a poor person so i don’t get teased, but i don’t want to go back to the psych ward

you see i wanted to be a hooligan in 1989, and my mate called me dude, and i got voices in my head saying

hang on yeah little cool dude, and my mate said, yeah enjoy yourself man, and i tried to be like his brothers

he went yeah man enjoy yourself, and i ran off, you see i hear voices of people treating me like a little young dude

because when i was young i used to stay up till 11.30 pm on weekends and i used to watch the young ones and

the fast lane, and i watched neighbours and beavis and butted and e street and i remember my mates saying

i think brian doesn’t want to do this, but i want to be a cool kid to the TV, and i would say, you talk to me, i watch the TV

and my mates turning out to be the adults who want to go out and experience life, my version of loving life is watching TV

and teasing my dad, saying he is a great big old fogie and i feel like people are treating me like a roughneck young dude

trying to take my little cool kid to the family credits away, but i don’t want to be a little cool kid to the family, i prefer to be a big young

dude who enjoys calling dad a great big old fogie because dad always said, i don’t know who he is, i said **** malone is going well

dad said, who is **** malone, i said i watched good times last night, and i saw jj and dad said, who is jj, what a ****, i thought

everyone knows about jj, he said, oh dyna—— mite, maybe i was treating dad like me, ya know treating him like a **** of a man

but that was because i thought jj was popular and so was **** malone, i got in a lot of arguments with dad about his ******* comments

ya see now i fall asleep on the couch as i go up to space to try and reform my young dude, because i still want to stay up, i hate going

to bed early, i am not doing what i did in wood berry for anyone, you see i will drink my soft drink and say a bottle of soft drink knocks you out

and i wasn’t a woosey, i was a basketball star, i was a cool kid to the basketball people, yeah i made mistakes i grabbed kids on the mouths

as occasionally i was trying to trap myself, but i was a sports kid, ya know very good at sports, and i want dad to treat me like a man, because

dad can’t protect me from up there, so i want to be treated like a man who enjoys the finer things in life, like eating pizza and drinking coke

and anything that makes me into a real party dude, i don’t want to be a shy person, mind you, i like the idea, of teasing dad from down here

looking at dads next life’s latest pictures on the computer and dad is now in jimmy barnes’s family as betty campbell, but dad is at peace in that family

but he died with everyone thinking he doesn’t want to be cool, and betty campbell is going to be cooler than her last life, baz boy allan

you see i remember when my brother treated me like a little spaz boy, like saying my brain was chopped off and i am totally spastic, yeah like a

little spaz boy, like mum called dad baz boy, my brother called me little spaz boy and i felt very weird because i wanted to be like the TV people

like ***** hogan and ricky stratton or even bart simpson, forcing my brother to be lisa simpson, you see i take my medication to make me feel

better because back then i felt like a koomarri man, and i heard voices of people saying, your still a young dude brian, and i said i am a young dude

ya know, i stay up till late listening to music talking to my brother about his favourite music and favourite TV shows, it was really cool

and when i was young i said i wasn’t a cool kid, i am a big man’s kid or a big young dude who listens to cool poison and twisted sister, **** i love that video

and i got on very well with my family, including the great big old fogie in dad

People say I'm intense and aggressive
Not camping, just scampering, rampant
I'm too quick to take care and I'm helping
The message is hell bent on answering
All of your questions so let up the pressure!

Chat, chat, chat and you think you're all that
Talk some smack just so you can get back
Launch an attack on the boy in black
That boy so sad he makes me mad
That boy is trash have you seen his raps?
He's so **** suss I really wanna clap
Left right, goodnight, put him in the spotlight
And scrutinise like I have that right

Aye, I bet you think you know me
When all you've seen is nothing really
Yeah, bet it turns you green
To know that I'm better than what you carelessly,
Push away, in rage, that's cute, so sweet
When you stay, enraged, by your own heartbeat.
When you fake til you make and that's why you grin
Guess you don't know that to lie is to sin

Yeah I was the kid who got left out and yes I was the kid who'd always doubt
I was the kid who had no friends and I was the kid who'd get left til the end
Chosen for games as the last called name,
If I couldnt be avoided like I carried black plague,
But look at me now, I stand so proud, and if you try to take this from me I will knock you down!

I bring the rain and you brought pain
So I gave it back like, keep the change
Hate it when you take it
Hypocritically making
Bad choices lately, despise me for saying

So you sneak like a snake and talk behind my back
But it never really cut me so I wouldn't say backstabbed
You never really mattered so I'll be fine
You can drown in your ball pit of lies

While I raise the storm and I right the wrong
While I pave the way and still remain calm
The black dog follows and hounds at my feet
But I am electric you can't bite me!

Stormbringer,
Stormbringer

You could call me Zeus I'm lightning when I move

Stormbringer,
Stormbringer

I'm a Godlike youth that you dream to pursue

Bolt from the clouds comes crashing down
Charging the air like a love affair
Handle with care? I was kicked down the stairs
They called me Zaps so be aware!

That's spaz backwards! Ha! So funny
Now that I'm electric I guess it means something
Now that I write hectic I guess it means cunning
Yeah I'm spastic with my bars but I'm shocking and I'm stunning

You wish you had the talent to grasp words with magnets
And have the power to change the charge like its only magic
And link negative to its own, and vice versa
Take a slasher of a song and make verbal ******

Call out the curses, fill them with hurt and close all your curtains, the sunlight is burning

Go outside and raise your head to the sky
Dark clouds race to claim it all as mine!

Stormbringer,
Stormbringer

Was the reject now I'm relevant

Stormbringer,
Yeah, Stormbringer

It's no dead ringer I was always a winner

Call me a sinner, I eat y'all for dinner
Those who call me a quitter, make claims that I never
Will get any better, when I'm rising forever
When I'm using my head and I'm light as a feather

I told you my name, don't use it in vain,
I gave you my hand, you can't do the same
So trust is reversed and storms start to churn
When I raise my voice it's a third degree burn!

I gave it non-stop what more could you want
When voices persist I'm getting *******
Continual fights and TV highlights
It took me a while but now I realise

Now I realise,
Now I realise!

I'm the Stormbringer....

Stormbringer, your head's like a spinner
Gasping for air, I crushed your throat from a distance, so killer, killer, killer...

Killer, killer, killer...

I shout out and you twirl around
Rotating one-eighty like you're an owl
You look at me foul like a fowl out of bounds so
This is just something for which you're renowned
Back in the day when you used to clown
Now that I'm clowning you're the one running around
What have I done? This isn't fun!
Come at me strong, or come at me none

Back in your cage, the one that you made when you went insane and told me to stay,
Never have I ever followed in your ways
Never would I ever listen to you persuade

You'd need some skill, and not fumble your speech
I've seen examples, week after week
Calling me out saying that I'm a creep
When I used to feel to get by I must sneak

Now the tides turned, I'm friends with Poseidon
I'm a demigod and you're just a pirate
Plundering the ***** of your best mates
What? You don't like the **** I say?

Aww...

But I am no fraud
I am my own mob
I'm raising my head,
To inflict what I got!

Alligator! Alligator! Alligator! Alligator!
Bite me whole and take me to space.
Staple my **** and spaz my face,
Plaice defrosting in the refrigerator.

These things all seem to come together,
Throw them far apart will be for the better.
I hate this ******* verse,
‘cos it all rhymed from Alligator!

I miss the old Kanye, straight from the gold Kanye
Chop up the soul Kanye, set on his goals Kanye
I hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye
The always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye
I miss the sweet Kanye, chop up the beats Kanye
I gotta to say at that time I'd like to meet Kanye
See I invented Kanye, it wasn't any Kanyes
And now I look and look around and there's so many Kanyes
I used to love Kanye, I used to love Kanye
I even had the pink polo, I thought I was Kanye
What if Kanye made a song about Kanye
Called "I Miss The Old Kanye", man that would be so Kanye
That's all it was Kanye, we still love Kanye
And I love you like Kanye loves Kanye

When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops & karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
& because my grandmother thought it was cute
& because they were my favorite,
she let me keep doing it

Not really a big deal

One day,
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
& bruised the right side of my body

I didn't want to tell my grandmother 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 teacher noticed the bruise
& I got sent to the principals 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
& I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruise

News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
& I earned my first nickname

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 & stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
& 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 *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves 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 taped 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
that someone tried to erase
but couldn't quite get the job done
& 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
Not because his parents opted for a different destiny
He was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
& two parts tragedy
Started therapy in 8th grade
Had a personality made up of tests & pills.
Lived like the uphills were moutains
& the downhills were cliffs
Four fifths suicidal
A tidal wave of anti depressants
& an adolescence of being called Popper
One part because of the pills,
ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
He tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who could still go home to mom & dad
had the audacity to tell him "Get over it," as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents fround 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
& 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
& 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
& if a kid breaks in a school
& 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
& 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 & bearded ladies
Oddities
juggling depression & loneliness playing solitaire, spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves & heal
But at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
It was practice
& yes
some of us fell

But I want 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
& 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
& 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 & broken teeth
to show & 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 &
sitting empty on a highway
& if in some way we are
don't worry
We only got out to walk & 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
& more to do with *beauty

Trev is a young dude and he needs to be liked by all




Trev is having a hard time getting teased by his little bro Markie, who was a real little cool kid, and when I say cool kid, I mean he does all the popular things, and all the rough cool kids loved my his brother Markie a lot, and Trev, is just a regular joe who likes to just go down the shop and have drinks, sitting down talking about fathers who were fairly strict, mind you Trev had all respect for his father, but that doesn't stop him from ratting him off to friends over a nice cold can of coke.
You see Trev had a main best mate named Heath, who was a real friend, well at least Trev thought that as Heath always seemed to listen to him, but Heath wanted really to be a cool kid, while Trev just wanted to talk about the things he watched on the TV, and he said a lot about that new music show named Later with Jools and Trev said that Jools Holland was a real hero for music fans to see their favourite music, and I know that sounds like what cool kids talk about, Trev, who, yes I haven't told you, as autism, and he gets obsessed with music, and every conversation was about music and being cool calm and collected.
Heath, didn't want to upset Trev but really he didn't want to listen to every conversation about music, you see it drove him nuts, and Heath didn't have it in his heart to tell Trev, because it could hurt his feelings, but really Trev could throw a tantrum, and Heath cared too much for that.
So Heath became Trevs only friend and came over to his house every weekend to play with him, but when Trev bought out the toys and started to talk about baby talk, you know he was only 8, but Heath didn't speak like that, and even Trevs younger brother Markie who still was using his mothers pet name as his name at 6, he was more grown up, and Heath often tried to tease Trev with his brother, and yes they teased Trev, and Trev was getting very angry, but he kept on trying to talk to his friend, he said ' who do you want to win today in the first round of the AFL, and Markie said how about we choose the team you aren't going for, and then Trev told Heath to come to the shop to buy a drink, and talk about problems with our families, cause Trev was thinking that just because your family has enough money to support you, it still can be a nightmare trying to grow up in a family like that, and Heath, who was getting sick of Trev winging and whining, just said to him that he liked him, and despite of what he says to his brother, it is just a joke, but of course Heath is a kid, and he was a poor kid, so instead of saying what I just said he said, that is what he meant, he actually said, you know , yo, man, wots, happning, ya fams orye qui comply, which you know Trev thought was complete jibberish, and started to think that Heath didn't care about him and sort of gave him the cold shoulder treatment, and Heath sort of noticed the chemistry trying to actually understand, and said his jibberish, which was yo man wots up,
Yo dude, ya nid ta liten up, and Trev was tired of this language and started to wonder why a friend of his was talking like this, this talking isn't proper talking, it'total jibberish, sure he is nice to me, but he speaks this real spastic jibberish, it drives Trev nuts, but really, he has no friends, at school, but he was honest, in that he couldn't figure out what language he spoke, and his brother Markie who heard him wonder what these words were in his mind on his bed, Markie started to teaee his brother saying, you are so ****** *******, you don't know anything that cool kids know, you stupid old ****, he is being cool, you see, ******, he say, yo, ya doin nuttin rye, ya stipid and yo a fu-en ritarded, spaz and Trev really was hurt, mainly because of the way he said it, because really those words meanr nothing, you see they are just words to suggest that kids can tease people who are disabled, so they can't figure out their goings on.
This kind of teasing was going on for days and days, and Markie was a real cool kid, everyone liked him, yes, like all kids want, Markie was popular and then Trev and Markies father noticed that Trev was starting to feel low, and really he tried it make Trev feel better, and yes Trev was normal enough, but his autism kept him from expressing how he feels about Markie and his friends teasing him, and his father and mother sort of were starting to figure things out and when Markie got home, their parents told Markie to behave himself and stop teasing his brother, and then Markie jumped up and said yo da, u
No tes ma bro, u spikin I tun, and then their dad said, maybe, but he ain't like the other kids, he has autism, and you know he needs to feel like people care about him, and Markie  moved around saying I ain hippin he, and then their dad said, if you don't I will ground you for weeks, and Markie promised to make an effort to be nicer to Trev, and Trev really was excited, so excited, be started treating his brother Markie like Heath, and then he thought he was a cool kid, and yes, Trev wanted to treat Markie like a ******, but unknown to Trev, their dad told Markie to go easy on him, but Trev got hypo over the fact that he was a cool kid, kids even said he was like us, man, but still Trev was still too disabled to know young words, but it didn't worry him, because the time his new cool friends noticed it, they were getting too old to tease people that way, even Markie moved on in the adult way, yes maybe This is the time for Trev to be an adult and not worry about being told he's stupid, because only losers tease like Markie used to, because that is just childish, and everybody lived happy through their lives, even Trev, the end


Sent from my iPhone

Speaking is an art
words like paint
we smear and spread out our ideas onto canvas

If you paint too fast-
**** it
you might make a mistake

Did you know paint can expire?
you think come one, paint?
paint can't go bad!
then you try and use it and its separated and chunky
and boom
your whole piece is ruined.

Words can expire too.
did you know that?
phrases and metaphors age turn ugly and contaminating just like the paint
they might have been usable once, but now
you'd better get some new words.

Like, when referring to someone who uses a wheelchair
people don't say they're crippled.
because that word has expired!

The same way simpleton was used to
refer to someone with intellectual disabilities
was is the key word there.
please for the love of god don't call anyone a simpleton

Lunatic was once used to refer to people with psychiatric disabilities
don't say the teacher who gave you homework on a Friday is a lunatic!

******* was used to refer to people with intellectual disabilities
but now you should NOT call anyone or anything *******!
because it is inappropriate and insulting

This isn't about taking away your words
it's about what you are taking away from people with disabilities
when you use language like that.
what you are stripping away from people
when you decide to use a word like

*******
gimp
deformed
disfigured

Freak
insane
lame
******

*****
spaz
stupid
whacko

Knock it off!
when you decide to use those words
it takes away from anyone who has a disability
or anyone who every will.

Use a different word
use swear words
find a thesaurus.

Get some new **** paint

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 favourite
She let me keep doing it

Not really a big deal

One day
Before 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 grandmother 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 teacher 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 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 get bombarded by spit *****
But the school halls were a battleground
Where we found ourselves 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 taped 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
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
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
Ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
He tried to **** 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 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 yes
Some of us fell

But I want 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’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 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 ******* 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

-Shane Koyczan

Jerry swears someday he's gonna marry thee
but he hesitates to take you on a date
Jerry says no movies that he wants to see
and diner food these days is not as great.

Jerry said he's saving for his future
and likes to see you saving for yourself
though daddy never said the man's Moocher
he's watching Jerry's actions for himself.

Jerry says
Jerry says
I don't care what Jerry says
Jerry is
what he does
if you listen to the buzz
Jerry has
been a spaz
though he's cute and all that jazz
let's see Honey put his money where his mouth is

Jerry said today he wants to stay with you
well you can't believe what comes out of his mouth
Jerry doesn't know which way his head is to
more than likely Jerry's head is pointing south.

Jerry said tonight he's working overtime
and won't be calling you, so go to bed
Jerry thinks that all you want are diamonds dear
expect Cubic Zirconium  instead.

Jerry says
Jerry says
I don't care what Jerry says
Jerry is
what he does
if you listen to the buzz
Jerry has
been a spaz
though he's cute and all that jazz
let's see Honey put his money where his mouth is

shaking, i'm shaking, i'm told.
like i can stop it somehow
one second i'm in class
the next
i'm on a stretcher
being asked by my principal
if i'm alright?
seizing, you're seizing, you're having a seizure
i'm told as i
puzzle together my surroundings
and as i do i begin to cry
why me? i ask
what did i do to deserve this?
even now, my memories of that day have been tampered
as if some omnipotent force doesn't want me to remember
the horrors of that day.
my friends tell me i walked out of class
no explanation as to why
maybe i thought it looked nice outside
the white clouds painted across the cool ocean sky

the doctors tell me my nerves are misfiring
but so are the thoughts in my head
for whatever reason i end up again
in some unknown hospital bed.
i close my eyes and count to ten
hoping for this to all just end,
but the stress disagrees with me
and leaves my weak head penned.

the last time it happened was in the bleak december
when the skies were gray with the sun's last ember
i am scared of the odds i won't make it to september
because of some unfair episode i can't even remember

Thursday, April 19th
forever imprinted on my inaccurate brain
the day my grandfather died.
the day my mother was diagnosed with cancer.
the day my life changed forever

people say high school was
the greatest four years of their life
that i should cherish and remember forever
for i will never be able to grab a hold of time
and wish to be back
but how should i remember high school
when memories are being deleted
in my brain's system files
and the only memories i have
are of my family falling apart;
my tears' perpetual flowing down my soggy cheeks?

my friends tell me i'm not alone in this,
but how could i be anything else.
they don't know how i feel,
they joke about it now like it's okay
watch out, they say,
don't have a seizure about it, they joke
by now my eyes are hoover dams
damming the tears from
showing the outside world
my true feelings.

and now i conclude,
as i am no longer in the mood
to sit here in deep introspection
because after all, everyone has imperfections
mine are just more unique.

To This Day
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 favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before 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 grandmother 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 teacher 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 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 get bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves 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 taped 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
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
that 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 **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his 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 on 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 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 want 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’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 click
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 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
******* 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.

Jerry said today he wants to stay with you
well you can't believe what comes out of his mouth
Jerry doesn't know which way his head is to
more than likely Jerry's head is pointing south.

Jerry said someday he's gonna marry you
but he hesitates to take you on a date
Jerry says no movies that he wants to see
and diner food you get is not that great.

Jerry says
Jerry says
I don't care what Jerry says
Jerry is
what he does
if you listen to the buzz
Jerry has
been a spaz
though he's cute and all that jazz
let's see Honey put his money where his mouth is.

Jerry said he's saving for his future
and likes to hear you're saving for yourself
and though your father wouldn't say Jerry's a moocher
he's watching Jerry's actions for himself.

Jerry said tonight he's working overtime
and he won't coming home, so go to bed
Jerry says you'd better pull your weight, my dear
or expect Cubic Zirconia instead.

Jerry says
Jerry says
I don't care what Jerry says
Jerry is
what he does
if you listen to the buzz
Jerry has
been a spaz
though he's cute and all that jazz
let's see Honey put his money where his mouth is

Poem 1
A LESSON THAT I TAUGHT

I Teach!!
I taught...
Here's a lesson that I taught...
I had this lesson. It were ace in my mind!
The planning was tight, concise, well timed

Going into the room - my stage
Put on the teacher face, the act
(My phone is buzzing but I don't react)

Lights, camera, action! You're on!

"Hi guys! Come in, unpack your things!"
But I'm just thinking about why it rings

"Hi guys! Come in, take off your coats!"
For some reason now I'm thinking about goats

(Why ******* goats?
Why now?!)
I thought
(I need to teach a lesson on...
Oh crap! The whiteboards not working!) "****!!"

Right, try again...

"Excuse me Chelsea, that skirts too tight,
And too short and you aren't wearing tights.
Go down to student point and get yourself a note"

And now I'll get back to the lesson that I taught

"I ******' 'ATE SIR! HE'S ALWAYS TIGHT!!"

Class - "Totes! Hahahahaha!!!"

I think ... Look you little tots, all you're thinking about is **** ... and your tots and your shots and your tokes in her tote!
You think you're ******* clever but you're not!!

I say... "This is an amazing lesson that I've got!
Does anyone remember the last lesson that I taught?"

"No sir, we do not"
"You're boring sir"
"Are you gay sir?"

On a parallel universe, where I don't care about my career and my home and my children...

I think in my head for a bit, then I say...

"Look you little spaz, you think I'm tight?!? I've been sleeping in a mates spare room at night
because me and the mother of my kids had a fight
and everything in my life is turning *****
Because all I do is stay up all night to plan a ******* lesson for a bunch of little scrotes! Who can't even take off their coats, And sit and ******* listen to the lesson that I taught! I'm marking so much that my body's not taut and my mind spins round and round in thought (a word which you spell ******* tawt!)
Progress and differentiation!
The future of your education!
And I just hope that in some way, I might actually TEACH you something today!
But all you think about is **** and tats and texts and sexts and COD and Christiano Ronaldo and Justin '*******' Beiber AND YOU CALL ME GAY?!?
You spell thought ... T.A.W.T!! You're 18 for gods sake!!
How you gonna make a living eh?!
Totesport?!

A couple of them titter

And the rest go silent...

And I think I've won!

'Til one of them says "sir... I'm gonna get you done!"

"And you're gay"

"And you're a **** teacher"

The end

To This Day by Shane Koyczan

To This Day
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 favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before 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 grandmother 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 teacher 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 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 get bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves 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 taped 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
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
that 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 **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his 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 on 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 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 want 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’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 click
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 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
******* 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

Lost in the mist with low battery,when I do right the world still mad at me,but the hatred just flatters me,heart broken like they baddered me,I do right and they still nag at me,reaching for heaven but the devil still dragging me,treating me like a food product they bagging me,if I spaz it's gonna be a tragity,fighting back like the Shan dynasty,my mother expect the best of me,but the world steady testing me,gotta do this and get that the world stressing me,no freedom society dressing me,it's like life molesting me

And you could have given us this and that
but you were in the throes of some spaz attack
Spiral down
your spires of blame
and you end up forgetting all the innocent
in their small existence
Influenced by their helixes
and culture, the temperature
and more than we can comprehend
Forgive yourself first and
you'll stop being such a ******* to all the rest
The malaise of the mayonnaise
Lives of all these unwitting folks

I have a plethora of empty et ceteras ahead of ya for getting you a head of yeahs. With this thick pen i spaz, repeat my jazz, ******, foobaz. Move through new class. U2 sweet lass or move it last. like molasses through the past without esses. Witout ss? Ooh, too fast? So we give r for morales, too, dad. You don't get it? Oh, too bad.

i am a young dude

a very cool young dude

i am happy all the time

then a bully came up to me

and said

i will take your young dude away

you see i go to the movies

and i see a flick that is grand

and then this bully came up to me and said

i will take your young dude

i don’t want that for i am cool, man

the coolest dude in the world

i said you can’t take my young dude away

because you are a spas

i am a young dude

a cool young dude

i love life oh yes i do

then this bully came up to me

and took my young dude away

i love life oh yes i do yeah

i will party like a young dude does

sure i might be disabled

but i am better than this bully

oh yeseree

i might be a spaz i might be a geek

or even a dweeb

but no bully in their right mind

will ever take my young dude away

ODAY ROD TAYLOR DIED, AND HE WAS IN A GREAT THEATRICAL EVENT IN SATURN

TO HELP BRING SATURN SOME FUN, THISC EVENT WAS ORGANISED BY DAD



YA SEE PARDON ME BOYS, IT’S A WELCOME UP HERE ON SATURN CHOO CHOO, OH YEAH CHOO CHOO

YA SEE PARDON ME BOYS, IT’S A CHATANOOGA CHOO CHOO OH YEAH,

WE WILL PARTY RIGHT ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

IN THE PLANET OF SATURN

AND THEN DAD AND ROBIN WILLIAMS CAME UP FROM THE SKY SAYING

PLEASE BUDDHA SAVE US, WE DON’T WANNA DIE

PARDON US BOYS, IT’S JUST A CHATANOOGA CHOO CHOO, OH YEAH DUDES PARTY NOW

AND THEN AS DAD AND ROBIN WILLIAMS SLIM DUSTY CAME UP AND SANG

IT’S LONESOME AWAY FROM MY CHILDREN AND ALL

FROM THE OLD DUSTY STAGE TO THE BIG TOWN HALL

THERE IS NOTHING AS HORRIBLE, AND MORBID OF DREAR

TO SIT IN A PLACE WHERE THE TAP HAS NO BEER

I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A BEER WITH BAZ BOY

I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A BEER WITH BAZ

WE DRINK IN MODERATION

AS BRIAN JOHN ALLAN TRIES TO GET RID OF HIS SPAZ

WE DRINK IN THE TOWN AND COUNTRY

WE’RE THE ATMOSPHERE IS GRAND

I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A BEER WITH BAZ BOY

CAUSE HE IS OUR FRIEND

THEN ROD TAYLOR CAME UP AND SAID HEH HEH HEH I AM THE WICKED WIZARD

I AM COMING TO TRAP YA YEAH

I WILL GRAB YOU AND EAT YOU UP, YEAH I WILL MAKE YOU FEEL INSCURE

YEAH MR SLIM DUSTY, AND I WILL SAY NO MORE BEER, PLEASE

CAUSE IT’S FORCING ALL THIS FUCKEN EVIL, IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN WORLD

BRIAN ALLAN CAME UP AND SANG

I HEARD WE ARE GOING TO BE ALONE IN THIS WORLD

I’M SAD YOUR SAD, WE ALL ARE SAD, THAT

THERE ARE TOO MANY COOL PEOPLE AS MYSELF, WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

IT’S SAD, IT’S SAD UMMMMMMM SAVE THE MENTALLY ILL BUDDHA DUDE

AND THEN THE GREEN METHANE KEG OPENED ALL OVER BRIANY

BY ROD TAYLOR, WHO WANTS TO SAVE THE WORLD

BY BRINGING GOOD THEATRE TO OUTER SPACE

AND THEN GRAHAM KENNEDY, CAME UP AND SAID

TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE

UP IS THE COSMIC WORLD YA SEE

A STAR THAT SHINES FOR YOU AND ME

TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, PARTY ON AND NEVER STRAY

AND THEN, A METEORITE CAME DOWN, AND DAD PICKED IT UP

AND GAVE IT TO BRIAN, AND TOOK IT OFF BRIAN TO GIVE IT TO SLIM DUSTY

SAYING, YOUR TOO SHY TO BE LIKE US BRIAN

AND THEN SLIM DUSTY, HOPPED ON THE METHAN SLIDE

AND INTO HIS SPACE SHIP SINGING

WE’RE GOING BACK AGAIN TO JUPITER, TO JUPITER TO JUPITER

WE’RE GONNA BACK AGAIN TO JUPITER BUDDY

IN THE PLANET OF THE HURRICANES

AND THEN SLIM DUSTY TIPPED METHANE OVER DAD

AND SAID, IF YA CALL BRIAN BRIANY, I WILL DECK YA WITH THIS METHANE

SO YA CAN ENJOY THE NEXT LIFE, BRIAN SAID, HOW ABOUT I

PICK UP A KEG OF METHANE AND TIP IT ALL OVER DAD

AND THE METHANE CAUSES A GREAT EXPLOSION NEAR

THE LOVE PLANET, WHERE PLUTO USED TO BE

AUSTRALIA DIDN’T  SEE THIS, BUT THEY HEARD IT IN THUNDER

CHECK OUT YOUR SCIENCE WEBSITES OR YOUTUBE SITES

AND COLOURS OF RED AND YELLOW AND PINK AND GREEN

PURPLE AND ORANGE AND BLUE

IT WAS SEEN IN A RAINBOW, IT WAS SEEN IN A RAINBOW

IT WAS SEEN IN A RAINBOW TOO

AND ROD TAYLOR SAID BYE BYE EARTH

AND THEN DAD SAID, CATCH YA LATER AND SEE YA LATER

YOU GO DOWN AND DO YA TAPESTRY AND WHEN HE GET

THOUGHTS, YOU WRITE THEM DOWN YA SEE

YA DON’T HAVE TO ASK ANYONES PERMISSION, BOO

AND SAM KINISON AND PAUL BERENYI CLEANED UP

BUT THEY STILL ENJOYED THE PARTY THOUGH

bright **** youths you choose
railed against the steel muse
wrestle off your noose

loudly at twilight
it's the carnivorous call
shaking down the halls

fine beastly retreats
feasts of prurient art meat
you're your own real cheat

spaz schism victims
puerile and lurid women
these giant mens' venoms

let heaven patrol
every hole of your bottoms
let bliss be the meter cheated, by the stanzas forgotten

Tick tick tick tick....
Bang!
A textbook slammed on my desk to pull me back to class from where i was lost.

A clock. A simple object sometimes a simple distraction with a tick sound that for most is easily blocked out.
Not me.

My brain is wrapped in train tracks with overflowing pit stops an non of it ever shuts down, the train is constantly going at full speed and randomly will come to an abrupt stop at a pit stop not of my choosing.

So while sitting in a room with everyday items and situations every and anything is something alien to my brain. My eyes never knowing where to look like two scared trapped creatures trying to find a way out, left right left right up down up down corner to corner to corner .

My hands constantly fumbling with something, my toes wiggle or i shake my legs kinda how you shake your water bottle when you want the flavor powder to mix with the water, oh while i was thinking of that im now in trouble because I've drifted away from my seat and have been touching random supplies and talking to everyone but its ok i made my teacher and everyone else laugh so im not as in much trouble but i have to sit back down and focus on the lesson which is i don't understand bc all i hear when someone speaks is the sound you hear when the adults speak in the peanuts.

Before i realize what im doing i find my self with pencil in had doodling on my desk spirals an squiggles along with funny the characters , i wonder if anyone else notices the fly on the window, what if its literally spying on us gathering information to inform the bug an insect armies they are being trained to take out humans.

Tick tick tick tick...
My eyes dart over to the direction of the sound to find myself back at the clock and its like i jump out my body and dive into the clock which is full of crazy fast moving gears that i run on and jump from one to the other following the sound of the ticking because i swear theres a tiny room hidden in the clock and the sound can be changed.

While I'm traveling around my weird clock world when someone speaks to me i freak out because my ears finally register there's something else wanting to be heard and then everything shatters i jump back into my body an spazz out like whoah who's that who are you what are you saying why are you speaking to me Oh! Its only Rachel the friend I've had since like 2nd grade.

The days are so different, sometimes I'm a social crazy person who talks till you tell me to shut up and im constantly wanting to go to stuff and sometimes im difficult to keep under control while others days the world freaks me out i mumble my words i can't think or speak and i get anxiety that builds and builds up pressure till i breakdown, people make me nervous, large crowds give me panic attacks, talking to someone or having to answer something makes me want to cry until the room fills up with tears like alice in wonderland.
I'll stare at you and while you speak but i can't hear you my brain doesn't process your words or that your actually there, i look at you but i don't see you, i look at your lips an there clearly moving but i can't hear the sounds or make out the words , I've probably only been focused on your tiny freckle under your right eye that most wouldn't notice unless you pointed it out.

Then there are outbursts that are so confusing, like ill freak out if your clicking a pen maybe i didn't yesterday but today i know i will, you wanna have a conversation today? I think not because whatever you're talking about for some reason today it just ticks me off so i just want you to stop talking and leave me alone. Textbook on the left side instead of the right side of the table today well that is just not ******* ok with me so i sent your name and address down to hell on a post card. You wore purple shoes today? Well ******* DUDE THAT MAKES ME ANGRY AS HELL FOR SOME REASON I DON'T UNDERSTAND. While at time the mirror becomes an enemy an seeing my reflection makes my blood boil and makes me want to smash it into a million pieces.

Im on a constant rollercoaster and my head is a chaotic fair everyday. Simple tasks for you are daily battles i struggle with and i don't really understand myself but they don't need happy healthy kids who feel there in control of themselves an there actions. They need well behaved kids who make good grades and get acceptable test scores that do as there told.

So i get a doctor who will squiggle some stuff on a paper, tell all the parents to pump there kids with drugs when they don't act how they want then the teachers shove you in a tiny empty room with no one else so i take the test and get those test scores there dying for but i don't posters taken down or the stapler put in a drawer or the clock taken of the wall because those aren't my only distractions, im my own distraction i can escape inside my head for hours on end or i can stare at my hands for the whole day thinking of every detail on my hand in deep detail like its crazy.

A ****** for me is that i love art and i love writing but writing is hard i know i make alot mistakes but also sometimes my stories or poems or whatever im writing can change into something different or i go off topic because my brain never stops what ever pops into my head i write it as i think it even if I'm writing an essay on president Lincoln if cheetos pop into my head I'll start writing about like oh president Lincoln was the... man i like cheetos ya know there so orange an taste so good an like you can have crunchy or puffy, crunchy cheetos are my favorite i wonder if president Lincoln would've been a crunchy or puffy cheeto kind of man.

I need a big trash can for my brain.

I want to breath...away from the canvas.
He's made it for me but I want to be free
One part from pills that I don't have
ninety-nine parts because of the names we were called
But who decides  our worth. when we cant?
From the names we were called
the classics like "Her spaz. hey freak..."
To the names that hurt deeper than a word
The ones we cannot brush away with a well placed smile
all I want is to breath
to be free of the canvas he has made for me
To stand up for the kids who cant do it for themselves
because I know how it feels to be broken
to feel like the names that kids give you,
are really who you are
One part suicidal, too parts loyal, and ninety seven parts afraid
I wanted to **** myself in grade nine.
Because of a girl who decided that my friendship..
it wasn't worth maintaining
Because even thou I stud for all that she was doing so alone
that I was not enough...
I kept my  tears from home because home is weir love is
But what happens when love is not what I need
now I want to stand up for the kids who have no one
no matter what that girl did to me.
Because no one did it for me
One part suicidal ninety nine parts afraid
I chose to believe that all life is preciouses
because yes some of us will give up
some of us who were more than one part suicidal
wont make it
but I chose to believe that all life is preciouses
because I want those kids who called us 'freaks'  to see
that I forgive them for what they did to me

just when i needed it to be
still, calm

it decided to have some crazy
spaz attack
spread from head to toe

i made a hasty excuse
stumbled down the stairs,
through the hallway
and collapsed on my bed,
trying not to wake the others

i curled up and shook
for what seemed like forever
and tried to convince myself
that i could control my own body

i wobbled up the stairs
and slipped back into bed with you

I am already dead,
I tell them what they want to hear
I’m fine, thank you.
I love you
They assume that I am gushing,
Overflowing with love
But, am i?
I frighten them away,
I know that I shall act honourably
They know too, don’t they?
That I am a spaz
A dead spaz
But why didn’t you say?
Are you feeling better now?
Yes, I’m fine thank you
Look, I’m naked again,  
I cannot speak,
I cannot walk
I cannot go
I cannot come
I am inspirational, unoperational,
Sensational, creational
And
I am already dead
What a relief.