Remember How We Forgot - Shane Koyczan

Remember how we forgot?

Remember how no one ever really died in the wars we fought?

Because each gunshot came from our finger tips

And we never really kept them loaded just in case

Cause each enemy was a friend and none of it was about oil, religion, or land

It was all just pretend

Remember how we used to bend reality

Like we were circus strong men

Like our imaginations were in shape then

Like we were all ninjas trained in the deadly art of «did not»

Like «I totally got you»

«Did not»

Remember how we forgot?

Remember how our parents told us never to look directly into the sun

And how we were their son

And so we never looked directly into the mirror, in fear that we would go blind

Remember how we used to find any old reason just to call someone we were

crushing on

Like we could just pawn off our sense of embarrassment

Buy a chunk of courage that would last just long enough to have us askin 'em

about math and stuff

And how stuff was just stuff

Like I heard you’re getting braces, now braces somehow were and still are kinda

hot

Remember how we forgot?

Remember how we all caught mono and our folks would go, «oh the kissing disease»

And our first steps into gangstahood had us saying «mother please.»

Even though we’d never really kissed anyone

Even though we never did half the things we said we’d done

We just spun yarn like Rumpelstiltskin spun gold

We told ghost stories never realizing we would one day ourselves become ghosts

Haunting the hallways of schools

Breaking all the rules of silence in the library

But we had no chains to rattle

No voice to battle the fact that we had no vocal chords

We had only finger nails on chalk boards

We would scream, shout, and yell trying to tell ourselves what experience can

teach is What no teacher taught

Remember how we forgot?

Once upon a time, we were young

Our dreams hung like apples

Waiting to be picked and peeled

And hope was something needing to be reeled-in

So we can fill the always empty big fish bin with the one that got away

And proudly say that «this time, impossible is not an option»

Because success is so akin to effort and opportunity they could be related

So we took chances

We figure skated on thin ice

Believed that each slice of life was served with something sweet on the side

And failure was never nearly as important as the fact that we tried

That in the war against frailty and limitation

We supplied the determination it takes to make ideas and goals the parents of

Possibility

And we believe ourselves to be members of this family

Not just one branch on one tree

But a forest whose roots make up a dynasty

So when I call you sis or bro

It’s not lightly

And when I ask you to remember

It’s because the future isn’t what it used to be

So remember now

Pay tribute to every sacrifice laid upon the altar of somehow

For all the times

Somehow we overcame

Somehow we pushed on

Somehow we’ve gone the distance

And in going there we possessed the freedom to map the uncharted lands of any

and Everywhere

We are unbound

Six feet above the underground where we will all one day rest

So until then

Test the limits

Test the boundaries and borders

As if the headquarters of potential lay just beyond the world’s edge

Let the belief that hope belongs to us all

Be the pledge you take to make the unachievable as inconceivable as the false

fact hat We were never here

We were here

And our memories are as dear to us as every slow motion moment or held breath

So remember every instance before death

Every first kiss, first dance, near miss, last chance, yes, no, maybe so

Let us go the distance once more

Let us remember all the moments that were and were not

Like the point is something we can get and what we can get is what we got

Because all we have are the times between the moments we connect each dot

So live and remember

Burn like an ember capable of starting fires

Like each moment inspires the next

Like memories are the context we put ourselves in

So that life becomes the next of kin we need to notify in case of a big bang or

Extinction level event

Let now be our advent

Let us live like we meant it

Let us burn like we mean it

Because this world doesn’t give a shit if we end in a train wreck or a car crash

If our story ends with a dot or dash

If we were dust or ash

Because all we were is all we’ll be

And all we are is the in-between of so far, so good

So forget every would, could, or should not

Forget remembering how we forgot

Live like a plot twist exists now and in memory

Because we burn bright

Our light leaves scars on the sun

Let no one say we will be undone by time’s passing

The memories we are amassing will stand as testament

That somehow we bent minds around the concept

That we see others within ourselves

That self-knowledge can’t be found on bookshelves

So who we are has no bearing on how we appear

Look directly into every mirror

Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story

And our story starts:

«We were here.»