To This Day

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 that 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 that the 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 penetrate. It does. 
She was eight years old. On the first day of grade three. The day she got called ugly. She got moved to the back of the class so she would stop getting bombarded by spit balls. But the school halls were a battle ground where she found herself outnumbered day after wretched day. She used to stay inside for recess because outside was much worse. Outside, she had to rehearse how to run away. Or learn to stay still like a statue, giving no clues that she was even there.
In grade five, they taped a sign to her desk that read "Beware of Dog" To this day, despite a loving family and great friends, she doesn't think she's beautiful. Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer that someone tried to erase, but couldn't get the job done. And they'll never understand that she already had a hard life, she didn't need them to add on. They don't see her heart before they see her skin. But she's only ever been amazing.
She was a broken branch grafted onto a different family tree. Adopted, but not because her parents opted for a different destiny. She was three when she became a mixed drink. One part left alone, and two parts tragedy.
She started therapy in 6th 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 antidepressants. And an adolescence of being called a popper. One part because of the pills and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty. She tried to kill herself in 8th grade. When she went home to "mom" and "dad" they had the audacity to tell her "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, she is a stick of TNT lit from both ends. She could descrobe to you in detail the way the sky bends in the moments before it is about to fall and despite an army of friends who call her an inspiration, she remains a conversation piece between people who can't understand sometimes that becoming drug free has less to do with addiction and more to do with sanity. But she isn't the only kid who grew up this way.
To this day, kids are still being called names. The classics were "Hey stupid" "Hey spaz" Seems like every school has an arsenal of names getting updated every year. If a kid breaks into 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 to clowns and then carnies. All of these were miles ahead of who she was. She was a freak.
Lobster claw boys and bearded ladies. Oddities juggling depression and lonliness. Playing solitairy 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 find 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 you 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 and 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. Because why else would you still be here? We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them. We stem from a root planted in the belief that we are not what we were called. We are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on some highway.
And if in some way we are, don't worry. We only got out to walk and get gas. We are graduating members from the class of We Made It. Not the faded echoes of voices crying out "names will never hurt me"
Of course they did. But out lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty.