1. Kindheit & Missverständnis

• Als Kind dachte ich, Pork Chops und Karate Chops seien dasselbe.

• Meine Oma fand das süß und ließ mich in dem Glauben.

• Eines Tages fiel ich vom Baum, verletzte mich, und wollte es verheimlichen.

• Die Lehrerin bemerkte die blauen Flecken.

• Eine Sozialarbeiterin fragte mich nach meinem Zuhause.

• Ich sagte: „Wenn ich traurig bin, gibt mir meine Oma Karate Chops.“

• Ergebnis: Ich kam drei Tage ins Heim.

• Und mein erster Spitzname war geboren: Pork Chop.

• Bis heute hasse ich Pork Chops.

2. Das größere Problem: Worte sind Narben

• Wir waren nicht allein.

• Wir wuchsen auf umgeben von Sprüchen wie:
  „Sticks and stones may break my bones…“

• Aber Namen? Sie brennen länger als Knochenbrüche.

• Wir glaubten: Niemand wird uns je lieben.

• Wir werden für immer allein sein.

• Wir werden nie jemanden finden, für den die Sonne gebaut wurde.

3. Schmerz, der wächst

• Wir schnitten unsere Herzsaiten durch, um nichts mehr zu fühlen.

• Doch: Seelenschmerz wächst.

• Er ist kein Tumor, den man einfach wegschneiden kann.

4. Erste Geschichten der Anderen

Sie – das Mädchen mit der Narbe

• Acht Jahre alt.

• Am ersten Schultag „hässlich“ genannt.

• Später ein Zettel an ihrem Tisch: „Beware of dog.“

• Heute verheiratet, Mutter von zwei Kindern.

• Aber bis heute glaubt sie nicht, schön zu sein.

• Denn das Mal im Gesicht sitzt tiefer in ihrer Seele.

• Ihre Kinder? Für sie beginnt „Schönheit“ mit dem Wort Mama.

Er – das Adoptivkind

• Wurde in eine andere Familie gepflanzt.

• Therapien, Medikamente, Depressionen.

• Spitzname: Popper.

• Versuchter Suizid mit 15.

• Mitschüler sagten nur: „Get over it.“

• Bis heute brennt er wie TNT – inspiriert andere, aber kämpft in sich.

5. Wir waren nicht die Einzigen

• Jede Schule hat ein Arsenal an Beleidigungen.

• „Stupid.“ „Spaz.“

• Das Klassenzimmer: Zirkus.

• Hierarchien: Akrobaten, Clowns, Dompteure.

• Und wir? Freaks.

• Außenseiter.

• Kinder, die Depression jonglieren wie Messer.

6. Balanceakt der Verzweifelten

• Nachts, wenn die anderen schliefen, übten wir auf dem Drahtseil.

• Manche fielen.

• Manche blieben oben.

• Alles nur Training für später.

7. Der Wendepunkt

• All die Narben, die Namen, die Schmerzen – sie sind nur Trümmer.

• Übriggeblieben, wenn wir alles zerschlagen, was wir nicht mehr sein wollen.

• Botschaft: Sie lagen falsch.

• Wenn du heute noch da bist, beweist du das.

8. Spiegel und Widerstand

• Wer nichts Schönes in sich sieht, braucht einen besseren Spiegel.

• Sieh länger hin.

• Es gibt etwas in dir, das dich am Leben gehalten hat.

• Du hast dein gebrochenes Herz eingegipst.

• Du hast unterschrieben: „Sie lagen falsch.“

9. Warum wir immer noch hier sind

• Wir feuern den Außenseiter an, weil wir uns selbst in ihm sehen.

• Wir sind keine Schrottautos am Straßenrand.

• Wir sind Menschen, die einfach kurz ausgestiegen sind, um Sprit zu holen.

• Wir gehören zur Klasse: Fuck off – we made it.

10. Die Wahrheit über Namen

• Ja, Namen tun weh.

• Sie taten es immer.

• Aber: Unser Leben ist mehr als das.

• Unser Leben ist ein Balanceakt zwischen Schmerz und Schönheit.

Fazit

Shane Koyczan zeigt:

• Worte können Narben hinterlassen, tiefer als jede Wunde.

• Doch aus diesen Narben kann Schönheit wachsen.

• Die Botschaft bleibt: „They were wrong.“

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 getting bombarded by spit balls.

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 kill 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 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 yeah, some of us fell.

But I want to tell them
that all of this shit 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:
Fuck off, 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.