Juggernaut - Shane Koyczan

he would say

be still.

be still my boy.

never son.

because i wasnt.

just some boy from a different dad.

seems like the only thing we had in common was our need for therapy, but

we never went.

we just spent quiet time together.

as if silence was expensive, but we were both fithy rich

a question like «do you love me?»

was an itch our doctors told us never to scratch.

so we just prayed someone would catch it while rubbing us down after walking

around with the weight of each others world on our shoulders

we had hearts like boulders

we played sysophis trying to push the others uphill

but we told our hearts

«be still.»

let no one move you.

let no one lift you.

let no one get through that stone wall you call skin

let no one in

because people are clumsy and they’ll break you

take you apart and study you

tell the world they knew you

as if knowing you was enough to make them the worlds most formost expert on you

they’ll claim that everything you did or didnt do was just another complexity

solved as simply as a grade two problem

as if by age seven my only problem was math.

as if i was never seven and more dedicated to figuring out which path was

quickest to the bathroom

so the bullies wouldnt have the satisfaction of seeing me bleed on my clothes

and god know’s you’d be there.

inside everywhere like a nightmare i couldnt stop having.

i’d wake up shaking with you there making it worse,

saying «be still.»

«be still my boy.»

never son.

just someone who it seems you like.

just someone who it seems you never tried to know.

so somehow without moving, we’d go through the motions.

two desserts daydreaming about a time when we were oceans.

we were still trying to make our tides come in

as if we’d been throwing messages in bottles into each other

and our refusal to actually write those messages

was just another way to say

nothing

we’d bring stillness home like a stray dog

and teach it to play dead

tongues like leeches, we bled our voices dry

while a plain dead dog would try to teach us tricks, like

speak.

but we sat silent.

like two blind students trying to sneak a peak at their grade six teacher

getting dressed

but we never knew what direction to look

so the kids next to us always whispered

«eyes on your own test»

and i hated you.

all the way up until the day you finally spoke.

you said

«there will come a time…

when the world will look at you without concern because you have always been

still.

they will look past you, you will be as unregarded as the scenery that people

take for granted.

you will be rooted in the perception of you that they have planted in their

minds…

but all the while you will grow.»

«and after all the years you spent trying to know stillness, the whole world

will turn their heads,

unable miss the moment you decide to move.

and there will come a time when you must move

move with the full force you would find behind the eyes of someone who could

have spent their life satisfying a million desires

but instead decided to conquer just one»

move like a legion of natural disasters towards the monuments they have built

in an attempt to declare greatness they have never earned move as swiftly as

the knowledge learned by the students of practice.

move so they cannot dismiss you.

like sunlight through stained glass

not around but through each mass they would raise against you.

move because being still is something they can never make you do.

move, my boy,

because i love you."

and i thought

awesome,

you totally taught me how to be stubborn,

thats great.

but now that youre gone,

now that quality has turned trait

i find myself caught up in an endless debate of

where vs. when

as if i’m waiting for then to become now

so that the answers to why i resemble reasons like somehows as if somehow is

enougn to encompass the rough estimates i make when i decide what direction to

take for the moment i break stillness

this heart is a juggernaught

one that you took the time to shape against all those who would hold up red

tape in the path of life i choose to live thorough.

this is much more than my meager declaration of love.

this is my thank you.

this is for a man who knew me well enough to know that should i ever choose to

go full throttle i can set my sails like a ship breaking through the neck of a

whiskety bottle.

school was a boxing ring,

and the man in my corner made sure not to bring a towel to throw in.

ive been studying stillness

watched my mother fight and lose to an illness that forced itself upon her as

if it were the man she met after my father

the same man who couldnt bother to stick around after the diagnosis.

i have known stillness.

this is for my grand dad.

who had the good sense to take me to that man’s house so i could ask him why he

did he what he did…

why?

i will accept your apology,

but you better make me believe that youre sorry.

so go ahead.

move me.

end