Biography shane koyczan poems tomatoes

“I think of the beauty in the obvious,
the way it forces us to admit how it exists,
the way it insists on being pointed out like a bloody nose,
or how every time it snows there is always someone around to say, “It’s snowing.”
But the obvious isn’t showing off, it’s only reminding us that time passes,
and that somewhere along the way we grow up.
Not perfect, but up and out.
It teaches us something about time,
that we are all ticking and tocking,
walking the fine line between days and weeks,
as if each second speaks of years,
and each month has years listening to forever but never hearing anything beyond centuries swallowed up by millenniums,
as if time was calculating the sums needed to fill the empty belly of eternity.
We so seldom understand each other.
But if understanding is neither here nor there, and the universe is infinite,
then understand that no matter where we go,
we will always be smack dab in the middle of nowhere.
All we can do is share some piece of ourselves and hope that it’s remembered.
Hope that we meant something to someone.


My chest is a cannon that I have used to take aim and shoot my heart upon this world.
I love the way an uncurled fist becomes a hand again, because when I take notes,
I need it to underline the important parts of you:
happy, sad, lovely.
Battle cry ballistic like a disaster or a lipstick earthquaking and taking out the monuments of all my hollow yesterdays.
We’ll always have the obvious.
It reminds us who, and where we are, it lives like a heart shape,
like a jar that we hand to others and ask, “Can you open this for me?”
We always get the same answer: “Not without breaking it.”
More often than sometimes, I say go for it.”
― Shane Koyczan, Remembrance Year

People always ask me,
"How do you memorize all that?"
And the truth is
The first girl that I kissed tasted like tomatoes,
I know this because the second girl I kissed tasted like peppers,
It was unpleasant,
It's just I was expecting tomatoes.
When I was a kid I learnt that time slows near a black hole
Inside that black hole time stops all together
Whether or not this theory will be proved
I

'm moved to believe this would be a perfect place to love someone
In grade 4 my gym teacher gave me the nick name half-ton
It was a name that stuck
I remember it because it was the first time I ever told someone 'go fuck yourself' and meant it
He quit calling me the name after he called my house
Trying to get me in trouble for what I'd said to which my grandmother replied: "Mr shithead, I told him to say it"

I remember my grandfather blue tool kit,

Where he hid a secret stash of raisins.

I recall thinking: “My granddad has the worst taste in candy.”

But he did teach me how to tie a tie.

My first opportunity to apply this knowledge was my first date,

A seventh grade class mate, who showed up wearing acid washed jeans and a Def Leppard t-shirt.

I wore a suit and tie.

When she asked why I was all dressed up,

I told her:  “i thought it would be funny.”

I am not saying it ended badly,

But she wound up leaving me for a boy,

who could make farting noises with his arm-pit.

I’m forced to admit - he was pretty cool.

In fourth grade my teacher had a rule about speaking out of turn.

Failure to learn and practise this lesson

 would result in having to sit outside.

I know this, because I’ve tried it once.

When she finally came out to check on me, she asked:

“What was so important, that it couldn’t wait?”

Knowing that it’s rude to point,

But needing to illustrate my position,

I gestured to her chest and said:

“Your boob is hanging

  We never promised each other muchwe were always just kind of touch and go. 

as if we knew we'd know that somehow we'd grow differentlyso we did and we do 

and none of this is to say that it wasn't worth going throughor that i care any less about youshoulders to lean on are hard to come by. 

I know because there were times I would have broken my own neckjust so that I'd have one of my own to cry on. 

 And I remember when each finger was a pawnmoving slowly across the chessboard of your bodyand we made each game last. 

Passed up each avenue of attack because neither one of us were trying to winSo how do we begin again when that feels like now and this feels like then? 

When all I can do is tell you"if you've got something that needs saying, tonight I'm paying dues." 

I've got a pocket full of blues and two pennies to rub togetherWhich means I'm wealthy enough that I can finally afford to pay attention. 

I'm listening.And I know right now I'm somehow like that kid sitting in math class,terribly aware of his first boner. 

It's hard.But difficulty has never been a good enough reason to describethe effort it takes to make the good times and the memories worth having. 

And they were and they are and I wouldn't have come this farif you weren't worth the sleepless nights where abandoned appetites of a heart, 

now rail-thin, because of the constant hunger strikes.In your absence, I'm finding value,because what starves you carves you, 

and I'm chipping away the rough edges of a statuebuilt to memorialize everything we've been through. 

And when I'm done, I'm gonna set it againstthe backdrop of the sun and stare just no matter where I go,it'll always be etched into the back of my mind,stenciled in behind whatever future I have left to find.Maybe we were never meant to last. 

Ma