Shut Up and Say Something (57 Minute Version)

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LENGTH: 56:35 min

AUDIENCE LEVEL: 9-12, Post Secondary

COPYRIGHT: 2017

ONTARIO CURRICULUM: Arts, English 9-12

DETAILS:

Shut Up And Say Something follows Canadian icon and acclaimed international spoken word artist Shane Koyczan on an emotional road trip to reconnect with the father he never knew. Seen and heard by millions worldwide, Shane's poignant and powerful poems tackle everything from bullying to body image - but behind his larger-than-life stage persona is a private and awkward man. As Shane unravels the story behind his troubled childhood, we get a powerful and intimate look at how a master wordsmith mines the scars of his past for truth, acceptance and the most important poem of his life.

Coarse Language - viewer discretion is advised.

Please click here for the 82 minute version of this program.

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AWARDS:

WINNER: VIFF – Most Popular Canadian Documentary

Official Selection: Salt Spring Film Festival, 2018

Official Selection: Calgary Film Festival 2017

TRANSCRIPT

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[MUSIC PLAYING]
When I go across the border to perform in the States, I have to tell them that I'm coming across to work.
And they always ask, what's your business?
Poetry.
And nine times out of 10, they will look say, poetry you like chicken?
If I should die today, tell the world the things I could never say, as if by saying them now, I somehow said them time and time again, as if yesterday was when I could say something to today.
That way, the world could hear me as loud and as clear as the year the world discovered.
I was so far before my time that my time left me behind to remind time that I'm here today to say that I made this time mine.
Me and failure, we only ever speak sign language.
We have a limited vocabulary, which means we disagree constantly.
And this is not to say I've never known failure.
I've taken her on double dates with embarrassment and humility.
During dinner, we sat silently watching candles melt into sculptures of all the things we've never said but always felt. I've got a black belt in the martial arts discipline of emotionally stunted.
But I've seen people open the lid on a can of worms that they use to bait a hook and go fishing for sympathy, so I know I'm not alone in this.
I'm not the only one with problems, and my problems are not unique.
So every time in the moment before I'm about to speak, I remind myself to shut up and say something.
Tell me who-- who is Shane Koyczan?
Isn't that what you're-- To the bare bones, like if a dictionary had to write in Shane Koyczan.
Who is Shane Koyczan?
Fuck, I don't know.
I don't fucking know.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHEERING]
Define Canada.
You might say the home of the Rockets or the Great One who inspired little number 9's and little number 99's.
We're more than just hockey and fishing lines off the rocky coast of the Maritimes.
And some say what defines us is something as simple as please and thank you.
I think Shane Koyczan first came to my attention at the Olympics.
I see this guy, just an ordinary looking guy, come out and absolutely knock the ball out of the park.
When I was a kid, I hid my heart under the bed, because my mother said, if you're not careful, some day, someone's going to break it.
Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.
I know, because I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.
The relationship that a performer builds with their audience is really strange.
It's really intimate.
If you want to be a gripping performer, which Shane is, he's a terrific performer, you have to be vulnerable.
When somebody does that, they're opening a vein.
It's deeply intimate and effective.
Remember how we forgot?
Remember how no one ever really died in the wars we fought?
Because each gunshot came from our fingertips.
And we never really kept them loaded, just in case.
Because 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 strongman, like our imaginations weren't shaped then, like we were all ninjas trained in 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 sons, so we never look directly in 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 were just pawing off our sense of embarrassment.
By a chunk of courage that would last just long enough it would have us asking about math and stuff.
And our stuff was just stuff like, I heard you getting braces, and how braces somehow were and still are kind of hot.
Once upon a time, we were young.
Our dreams hung like apples waiting to be picked and peeled.
And hope was something needed 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 that 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.
Remember all the moments that were and were not?
Like the point is something we can get.
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.
Burned like an ember capable of starting fires.
Like each moment inspires the next.
Like the memories of the context we put ourselves in so that life becomes the next of kin we need to notify in the 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 a 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.
Exist now in a memory, because we burn bright.
Our light leave scars on the sun.
Let no one say we'll be undone by time's passing.
The memories we are amassing will stand as testament.
But somehow, we bent minds around the concept that we see others within ourselves, that self knowledge can be found on bookshelves.
So who we are has no bearing on how we appear.
Look directly into every mirror, realize our reflection is first sentence to a story.
And our story starts, we were here.
Thank you.
I talk about openness a lot.
I talk about being open and being open to new ideas, and things like that.
And really opening up your heart, and stuff like that.
And I think the reason I talk about that stuff so much is because I had a really hard time doing it.
And I can't do it all the time.
And I think that's what my want.
The overwhelming response that he gets from people of all walks of life, from the big jocks, to grandparents, to young kids, to everybody.
And for the most part, he's incredibly gracious.
And he listens to people.
And he engages with them in a way that I think is really meaningful to them.
But also it's not disingenuous.
I think it's really meaningful to him as well.
I just want to say thank you for everything that you've done.
You've helped me through some hard times, for sure.
And just, when you came out and said that you didn't cure anything, I really want you to know that you have.
Oh, wow.
Thank you, man.
And I'm not for just me.
There's other people [INAUDIBLE]..
What is your name?
Dylan.
Dylan, pleasure, man.
Thank you.
Thank you, man.
Oh my god.
People look up to him a lot and expect-- expect him to be a bit of a superhero with his words.
That's a big weight to carry around, I think.
I feel like it must get lonely.
[ALARM]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's like treasure.
Can I interest you in some poetry, perhaps?
The home isn't complete without it.
What is any encyclopedia?
I have a weird relationship with confidence.
I can go and talk to a roomful of strangers and be totally, like, uh, here it is.
Here's my whole life.
Just cut myself open right down the middle.
Let all the guts spill out onto the stage.
One on one, totally different story.
I just don't know how to be around just a person, because I didn't develop those skills in school.
One of the first lines of poetry I can remember writing was in response to a world that demanded I hate myself.
From age 15 to 18, I hated myself for becoming the thing that I loathed, a bully.
When I was 19, I wrote I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean toward the opposite.
And I remember this plan born out of frustration from a kid who kept calling me yogi and pointed to my tummy and said, too many picnic baskets.
Turns out, it's not that hard to trick someone.
And one day before class, I said, yeah, you can copy my homework.
And I gave him all the wrong answers that I'd written down the night before.
He got his paper back expecting a near perfect score, and couldn't believe when they looked across the room held up a zero.
I knew I didn't have to hold up my paper of 28 or 30, but my satisfaction was complete when he looked at me puzzled.
And I thought to myself, smarter than the average bear, motherfucker.
[LAUGHTER]
He's got a very thick shell, I imagine for a lot of people would be very hard to penetrate, very hard to get to know the real person.
I wasn't old enough to remember my mom and dad leaving me.
I grew up believing that my grandparents were my parents.
It's the reason I called my grandmother, mom.
I don't call her grandma.
And then one day at school, somebody knew.
Somebody knew that my grandparents were not my parents and that my uncle was not my brother.
And very innocently, without any malice, just out of curiosity, just out of being a kid, being a child, just wanting to know why I was different, why my life was different than their life, they asked, how come you're not with your parents?
Why are you being raised by your grandparents?
And that's where everything sort of fractured and became this really sort of complicated spiral fracture where it felt like my legs just sort of broke out from underneath me.
And I didn't have an answer to that question.
He was a broken branch grafted onto a different family tree, adopted, 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 eighth grade.
Had a personality made up of tests and pills.
Live like the uphills were mountains and the downhills were cliffs.
Four fifths suicidal, a tidal wave of antidepressants, and an adolescent being called hopper.
One part because of the pills, 99 parts because of the cruelty.
He tried to kill himself in grade 10 when a kid could still go home to mom and dad had the audacity to tell them get over it, as if depression is something that could 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 a moment before it's about to fall.
And despite an army of friends who call him an inspiration, he remains a conversation piece between people who can understand.
Sometimes being drug free has less to do with addiction and more to do with sanity.
Shane lives far away from any big city.
And I don't blame him.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The only time I really remember meeting my dad, I was 11 years old.
I remember he took me and my uncle out fishing one day.
I've seen him twice more since then.
Both were at shows.
To have lived a life-- 39 years is a long time to just say nothing.
When are you going to say something?
It has to be now.
Has it really been tough?
What do you think?
What do you think?
I don't know.
I think it's tough.
Yeah.
I don't think so much of a-- it's not the situation of-- like, he's your father, and you're his son.
It's just more like, what do we say to each other?
That's exactly it.
It's fucking-- it's really stressful.
How do you start a relationship from-- From fucking scratch 40 years after the fact.
And it's not that I don't want the relationship.
It's just like, it's really hard.
It's really difficult.
What do you see [INAUDIBLE]?
Are you filming this right now?
Yes.
Oh, Jesus.
I don't want you to reuse any of this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Everyday, my grandma would come in to my room.
And I'd hear her say, rise and shine.
The world has a window that holds a sign there's help wanted out there somewhere, young man.
So I rose and I shine.
I put on my shoes.
And I was gone.
See, grandma bought me my first phone.
She said, don't bother calling people who've taken up a fight.
Call the people who won't.
And I learned at a very young age where my grandmother's rage came from.
The entire congregation would nod and never ask grandma about God.
I'd argue with her every day.
All she'd say is go down to the store.
Buy someone light bulbs.
And when you run out, buy some more.
Because the light at the end of your tunnel needs to be maintained.
You can't let it be sustained by their beliefs rather than your beliefs.
And you can't agree to disagree, because they're fucking wrong.
Do you have a favorite show you scenes of Shane's?
I like all of them, because that was the first time I've ever seen him on stage.
And he really-- how can I say it?
His poems were very strong.
And it's-- It's like my odor.
Yeah.
When you go to the bathroom.
Oh, thank you.
Awesome.
You're welcome.
All right.
That was a free one.
Oh, OK.
Shane has come a hell of a long ways.
I'm a kid, too, where he is today.
People wonder why I have such a crucial relationship with my grandmother.
And it's because she was the one that was there.
She was the one that, whatever help I needed, a cup of tea at 4:00 in the morning.
Do you think you'll ever get over the pain his dad caused him ?
Well, I'm hoping.
That's all you can do, is to hope.
It's hard for a kid to be growing up without a father and a mother, and have the grandmother, who thinks the world of him.
Today we're driving to go pick up my dad who I have not seen in a substantial amount time.
And basically just going to ask him some questions about my origins on this planet.
Every superhero wants to know their origin, right?
Like, you have all of these questions loaded up in your mind.
And you're like, OK, which ones are even appropriate and ask?
Which ones are appropriate to start with?
Or, is my fear of what's appropriate standing in my way of getting my full story?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Do you-- are you hungry at all?
Do you want to get something to eat?
No, I had a meal in-- OK.
I felt very dangerously on the border of being stubborn my whole life.
In some ways, it's been very beneficial.
But it's been very detrimental in my personal relationships.
It's like asking yourself the question, what do you want.
And a lot of times, in order to get what you want, you're going to have to change.
If what you want is happiness, and you're not that immediately already, then some part of you has to change.
And change is always a scary prospect for anybody.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
How do we get things going?
So I guess the-- like, I mean-- the first thing, like I mean-- tell me a bit about you growing up.
Tell me about your family.
Your mom was Cree, right?
Yeah.
OK.
And they lived outside of the old Fort Ray on the shore of the big lake.
And so, for you growing up, what was it like before-- when did they come and get you and take you away to residential school?
I was-- I think I was about 12 years old.
And it wasn't just us.
They just come in and rounded a whole bunch of us up.
And all of a sudden, we didn't know what was going on.
All of a sudden, we're in a small plane flying.
And they're taking us away from our home.
At the time, did they even explain to you what was going on, why you were being taken?
No.
So, it was basically like being kidnapped.
Yeah, basically.
And we didn't have a clue what was going on.
We didn't know how long we're going to be there.
We didn't know if we were going to see our parents again.
Like most teenagers in the 60s and the 70s, life was about fun.
I met Barb at, of course, at one of the parties.
One thing led to another, and nine months later we had Shane.
It was a rude awakening.
Like, I-- I was not ready for it.
Was it the stress and responsibility of me that was-- No, no.
It just-- I don't know.
The drugs became a big problem for me.
Right.
I had a run in with the law.
And I come out on the loosing end in prison for a year.
When I come out, I had a different outlook on life.
I made contact with Barb when I got out.
But by then, she had already started a new life.
I wasn't about to upset the apple cart there.
Stay.
That's what mothers say when the sons and daughters go away.
They say stay.
My mother said go.
So I wasn't there the night she fell out of her wheelchair so frustrated that she amputated her own legs, or rather, tried to with a steak knife.
Her life leaking out of a white floor, blossoming like roses in the snow.
Our relationship was an anthem composed of words like gotta go.
So we went.
And sent our regards on postcards from all the places we'd been with stories about all the things we'd seen.
That's how it was with you and I.
Why say goodbye when we could still write?
But then it took your hands.
We should have practiced goodbyes.
Because then it took your eyes.
And I was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, watching the sunrise over a stop sign placed on the center line of a highway filled with sudden turns for the worse.
Running back home, because I got to play nurse.
And all I could say is if I could, I would write you some way out of this.
But my gift is useless.
And you said, no.
Write me a poem to make me happy.
So I wrote move pen, move.
Write me a bedroom where cures make love to our cancers.
But my mother just motions to a bottle full of answers and says, help me go.
And now I know something about how a piano must feel when it looks at the fireplace to see sheet music being used for kindling.
Smoke signaling at the end of some song that I thought it would take too long to learn.
So I just sit here watching you burn away.
All those notes I never had a chance to play, to hear the music of what you had to say.
So I hold my breath.
Because in the countdown to death, the question of why melts into when.
How much time do we have left, because if I knew what I know now then-- move, pen, move.
Write me a mountain.
Because headstones are not big enough.
And my mother says, stop it.
Write me a poem to make me happy.
So I write this.
Stay.
She smiles and says, gotta go.
I know.
Goodbye.
My mom's name was Barbara.
I believe she was 17 years old when she had me.
She passed away a while ago.
Got MS, multiple sclerosis.
Left knowing that she was facing a disease that was going to make it impossible for her to be independent.
I don't know if I'll ever see that kind of bravery again.
Thanks for coming.
We'll see you.
Welcome to our humble abode.
I was just admiring some of your art here.
He'll never be Shane's father.
I feel for Shane in so many ways, because a lot of it is just perpetuating a mythology in your own head.
And it's a question of just realizing you've got to give that stuff up.
And it's easier to say than it is to actually do it.
But I think there can be a wonderful friendship there.
Well, what I'd like to do is basically the impossible.
I'd like to go back in time and have another shot at-- can't.
To this day, I feel guilty about not being there for Shane.
If I had to do it over again, like Loretta and Jerry could still give Shane the life that I never could.
And even though I regret it, I've not always being there for Shane.
I still think it was the right choice.
I'm just sorry I wasn't there to be there for you more.
How is it been with your dad today?
Challenging.
You see, I got rid of all the bad things in my life.
And the only addiction I have now basically is my love of art.
I love art.
And I did at one time have an art gallery up in the Yukon.
I've got one of my favorite paintings that I told him I'd give him.
It's my favorite painting of a golden eagle.
So I promised him that.
So I'll give him that painting.
This has been something that we've both wanted to happen for a long time.
But we didn't know how to do it.
And for me, I guess, doing it this way with you guys and having other people around me was a way to ensure that I wouldn't chicken out.
Because there was no guarantee that-- he could have got here.
And I could have just totally like I changed my mind and, said, you know what, I'm not going to bother having this conversation.
I needed to have this conversation.
It's a-- it's a good start.
If you think it will be easy, if you think the path will be laid out for you, or that the trail will have previously been blazed, all obstacles cleared, every footstep already pioneered by those who've gone before you, you will be disappointed.
It will require more than that.
There will be no welcome mat waiting to greet you at the foot of this mountain.
It exists only to task you with discovering how much deeper you can go.
It will burden you with the charge of bringing to the surface an understanding of the misunderstood, the excavation of an answer to the question, what now?
How do you keep going in a world where the hellos are outweighed by the goodbyes?
How do you train yourself to know that you have to battle through the fall if you ever expect to rise?
You have to accept the fact that the size of the mountain in front of you is secondary to the fact that there is a mountain in your way.
Do what you're going to do about it.
You will never master being a whole without first knowing that some of the pieces we lose stay lost, and that sometimes, the cost of moving forward is having to leave behind that part of yourself and learn to exist without it, to bow in respect to whatever mountain is in your way, but then to do what you're going to do about it.
Oh, shit.
Fuck.
Oh, shit, fuck.
What have I done, Stewart?
What have I done?
Hey, guys.
Keep in mind, I do not have my pedal.
Keeping it in mind.
[INAUDIBLE] maps, our hearts.
Our hearts.
[INAUDIBLE]
Wait for a sign.
My life continues to be very much what it is, another hotel room, more touring.
The hope is that something grows out of that experience.
Cool.
Awesome.
I'm not an artist in the conventional sense of like, here's a canvas, and here's some paint.
Everything that comes out of me is something that's turning around inside of me, kind of like this hurricane.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You try to fight in the calm of it, the center of it.
How can I turn all of this turmoil, all of this pain, or joy, or all of the things that make you human, the things that make you feel, how can I take hold of those things?
And the storm of that, and find the center of it, the calm of it.
And exist in there long enough to bring those things together in a way that is focused and meaningful.
And not meaningful for other people to consume.
Some things have to be for me.
And maybe this is one of those things.
My flag is a traffic light.
And at night it glows red, amber, and green.
And I've seen them everywhere.
So I guess in that sense, the road really is my home.
And I've got poem after poem of what it's like miss a home cooked meal, of what it's like to wake up and feel my arm draped over your absence, because I missed breathing in your skin like incense.
And I bet you never knew that when I'm sleeping beside you, I wake up just to make sure I'm holding.
You feel like a mountain that doesn't know it's being climbed.
As your breath is timed with the in and out of mine, I run my hand up your spine like it was the center line of a highway with no stop sign.
Hit the intersection where your shoulders meet your neck, and pass the car wrecks of ex-boyfriends parallel parked on dead ends.
And I just hope your skin lends me an extra mile so I can slow down.
Take a while to get my the landscape and drape my arm over your being there this time.
When it comes to your skin, I'm a drunk driver just trying to walk a straight line.
There are no directions highlight them the best to mark this spot.
We thought it was waiting for us at the end of a very long distance.
Shane Koyczan?
Yeah?
Hi.
Hi.
I'm Juda.
I've seen your stuff on YouTube.
And definitely on my downer days, I definitely listen to it.
Oh, cheers.
Thank you so much.
It's so weird to be able to be open with strangers, or you know, like me in an audience, like-- How's it going?
-- and struggle, really, really on that one on one level.
Get to know somebody.
Who is your dad?
Who's your dad?
You know?
It's hard.
It feels almost impossible.
Still there.
It's like, how am I supposed to tear all of it down?
How am I supposed to make it go away and have it so it's just us standing there?
So, OK.
I didn't get an actual number from you.
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
OK.
Let's see.
There's myself, my brother John, Dave and Ralph.
And then the girls, there's Diane, Kathy, Joyce, Valerie, Shirley.
Holy smokes.
That's a huge family.
When I first got back in touch with you, and I found out that I had a sister, I didn't know that growing up at all.
I heard nothing about that.
And so there was a part of my life where I was just like, how am I just being cut out from this other side of my family?
Did you just not know how to get a hold of me, or like to tell me that?
Or-- For a large part of that time, I felt like I was the one that was cut out.
So many times I'd write you a letter, and I just couldn't hit the dog-on send button.
Yeah.
Like who the heck am I after all these years of not being in his life just to try and push my way into his life.
I thought that-- and I still do-- feel that I haven't earned the right.
There's a lot of digging that happens to unearth the truth of what it is I'm feeling or what it is I'm thinking or going through.
And so, I started to write a piece about my dad and the process of forgiveness and what that costs me to do that.
I accept 100% of this responsibility for your mom and I breaking up.
When my daughter was born, that was the icing on the cake.
It kind of hurts to hear that it was worth it the second time around, but not the first time around.
But, you learn by your own mistakes.
And that's exactly what-- No, and that's the thing.
Like I can't sit here and say that I've lived a mistake free life.
I've made my mistakes, too.
I have my regrets, as well.
So I do understand.
And so, when you ask me, why is a relationship with my father important, is because he is part of my story.
I didn't realize I think at the time that my story isn't just my story.
My story is made up into stories of other people.
How are you?
Aw, you're very shy.
That's all right.
The Illinois version of Mick Jagger right here.
Yeah, I got the moves and everything.
This is the one.
That is my pride and joy.
That's gorgeous.
I know it's been, what, 10 months since I've promised it to you.
Aw, that's all right.
I'm not in a hurry.
It's not pretty.
But at the same time, let me read you this just so you get a sense of where I'm going.
Before I tell you what forgiving you cost me, understand first that I forgive you.
What's the purpose of my heart if I can at least do that.
Fact is, I'm here.
It doesn't matter if my becoming was a willful act of lust or an accident of youth.
The truth is you are half of the reason I exist.
You should know also that existence has historically not been my favorite activity.
How fucked up is it that pain became a source of comfort in my life?
But I don't mean it in a dark way.
I mean it in a way-- it's like this is how I learned to build fire.
This is how I learned to make light.
All right.
[INAUDIBLE]
We'll get a five of diamonds.
I'd like to cut it out.
I just want him to teach me something, something simple, something that he knows how to do.
The fish will be almost like a letter C.
And then as you're pulling, it would continue twirling like that.
OK.
All right.
Sounds good.
That one's better only because it's $10 cheaper.
OK.
I don't see him having problems.
I think I'm the one with the problems.
I'll show you the simplest-- You look at all these movie stars.
They've got it made.
They've got everything, yet sometimes they say, well, I'm lonely.
How can you be lonely?
I wish you could understand how it feels.
But I hope you'll never have to.
I hope you'll never know the things I knew, things about despair, and every other thing it cost me to get through.
I hope you grew up safely.
I worry I was a distant cousin who never came to visit.
I hope you had friends, and that there well meaning was your first aid kit.
A lot of people get the genre wrong when they talk about bullying.
People who see it from the outside think that it's drama.
People who live it understand that it's horror.
We're all just trying to outrun the monster.
I keep hoping for catharsis, like the school bus on a snow day.
It never comes.
The only way to connect with people in this world is to put something into the space in between, to build an environment with words or with sound or with gesture or affection.
It becomes very clear along the way who the people are that deserve more of your time, and who the people are that deserve less of your time, because time really is the only commodity you have.
It's-- it's the only thing of-- it's the only real currency.
The most that we can hope for in this life is to feel connected and to feel like our words can convey truth.
In the end, we're all which we had danced for, and cuddled everlastingly.
In the end, we'll all wish that we had spent our wishes on what mattered.
We should have scattered my feet like seeds upon the world.
Legs like stems crawled around my bones and bursting through the floor.
I should have been planted in rhythm, watered with defiance.
I should have danced more.
I should have worn my heart on my shoes.
Should have cared less about whose toes I was stepping on by doing what brought me joy.
As a boy, I watched other children vanish the instant faded from the heavy axe of judgment come down upon their hearts.
As an artist, I want to carve monuments to the fact that sacrifice is a cemetery to our spare parts.
All of the things we were made to learn to live without, the parts of ourselves we were forced to let go.
I don't know a lot, but I know this.
The second any of us are judged for being a carefree, the child in us is made to stand permanently in the corner forever hushed.
So eternally silent, the quiet will be the only thing to remain when the entire world is ended.
I should have attended more classes of fuck you, I'm not yours to control anymore.
I'll do what I please.
Please excuse me.
I'd like to dance more.
[APPLAUSE]
See, I'm struggling to find the right words here.
You talked about building bridges.
Yeah.
And we're on a bridge?
Woo.
Crazy.
Why are you trying to build bridges with people at this particular point in your life?
I've always wanted these relationships.
It was just a question of, do I have the tools it takes to build those bridges?
You know how long it's taken for me to just be able to talk to someone?
And it is just another person.
It's so bizarre, because what I do on stage, people assume, oh, he must be a really good communicator in person, or-- vocabulary is great.
But you need-- there's a different set of skills that need to go along with it if you want to build something deeper.
There's always going to be fear.
There's always going to be hesitation.
There's always going to be doubt.
Hey, how are you?
I'm good.
How are you?
Very good.
Nice to see you.
This is a picture from that family reunion.
So, there's a lot of people there.
Holy smokes.
I don't know any of these people.
Yeah, that's all on my mom's side.
That's me when I was younger.
Oh, my god.
Harland, look at you, country singer extraordinaire.
That's insane.
My teacher, he's like, what's your last name?
I'm like, Koyczan.
He's like, that sounds familiar.
Do you know Shane Koyczan?
I'm like, yeah, that's my uncle.
And he's like, oh my gosh.
If you see him again, tell him he's a big fan.
And he says Hello.
That's awesome.
We'll get a picture later.
OK.
When were you born?
In 86.
So you had Harland then when-- 20-ish, like 19, 20.
Right.
When did dad tell you about me?
I think-- I don't know.
I was about seven.
It kind of blew my mind, because I'm thinking, I'm an only child.
And then when I found out that I did have a brother, I was just like, what?
Where?
Who?
What's his name?
And why am I just finding this out, kind of thing.
To confess something to you, I grew up, I was very resentful of my dad, knowing that when I discovered about you and your life, it was really difficult to sort of look at it and then be like, well, what was wrong with me that you couldn't stick around?
And I was just really hard to sort of discover that he still had a very full and happy life.
Meanwhile, I was out there on my own suffering through it or struggling through it.
Dad doesn't know about this yet at all.
And please just keep it between us for now.
But I'm writing a piece that-- in trying to find some sort of catharsis between us.
And part of it's going to be very hard, because the first part of it, I need to address that venom.
Because there's a lot of poison there for a long time.
And so, it's going to be hard for him to listen to, I think.
And as much as I'm trying to reconcile the past, it's so that we can have a future.
It needs to come out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, like my son relates to that a lot as well, because he doesn't know his biological father.
And it's is really crazy right now, too.
Like I just found out recently that my son, like his biological, had three more children.
So Harland's got like four siblings out there in this world that he doesn't even know.
Right.
Wow.
And that's a lot.
Yeah.
I thought I only had one.
Well-- Uh, oh.
He had that one, but he had a couple of more kids after.
But that's exciting, huh?
A bit.
But a bit shocking.
A bit shocking for sure.
Well, like I mean, that's how I felt when I found out about your mom.
I didn't know her at all.
And so-- but, it's also opened up a whole new chapter of my life, right, getting to know you, getting to meet you.
So hopefully you aren't as stubborn as I am, and you take advantage of it and get to know those people, because they'll be important people in your life.
Do you mind if I ask you a question, Harland?
No.
Not at all.
How do you deal with growing up and not having a dad around or a father figure around?
Does that matter much to you?
No.
No, it doesn't it, eh?
Why is that?
Because my great grandfather, he's basically a dad to me.
OK.
So you have a father figure in your life.
Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
What's the point of love if you can't use it to forgive people that hurt you, if we can use it to do something positive.
Yes, we-- love hurts us.
Yes, absolutely.
It destroys us from the inside out.
And when you get her by love, you feel it in a very physical way.
It will knock you on your ass.
And then you have a choice of what you can do with that feeling, which is still love.
Why can't you use it in a positive way?
Why can't you use it to create something that can heal, rather than something that can just wound the other person back?
Maybe I caught some.
What do you think?
We're going to have a nice fish dinner.
So what I want to do now is-- I wrote something-- OK.
That has been very challenging for me to write.
And it was really difficult to try and distill everything down into one-- to one thing that I could present to you.
And I just wanted the opportunity for you to experience directly what it is I do.
And not all of it is going to be easy to hear.
Like, I mean, there'll be some difficult stuff to hear, but-- I can totally understand.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm hoping it's something that will help heal the space that exists between us that keeps us apart.
There were always words.
Even when there was no one there to teach me what they meant.
Even when the ones I needed most bent themselves into hooks that got caught in my throat, I wrote down the ones I couldn't bring myself to say.
Kept them polished and true for the someday that is finally here.
I don't mean to dig up the past.
Just let me clear the cemetery out of my throat, because there's some things you should know.
You should know that every word I ever wrote has been in rehearsal for the now that is finally upon us.
I don't mean to put up a fuss about love.
I just wonder.
Is there a plot of land in the territory of your heart for me?
Is there a place we can lay our regret to rest peacefully?
You should know that as a child, I planted drops of blood into the ground like seeds hoping I could grow your ghost and finally have a reason for your disappearance.
Where were you?
Who were you too busy being that seeing me was back burner for so long that I eventually caught fire, that I became a spire of flame you were too scared to reach out to for fear of being burned.
In your absence, I learned a recipe for an inferno that turned everything it touched into ashes that refuse to fall apart.
Others called it stubbornness.
I called it conviction.
I rubbed words together understanding that friction was the ingredient needed for the ember that would grow the blaze in my chest.
I press my hands into the world and wondered if the mark I left would be big enough for you to finally notice.
We both made broken into a work of art we could not bring ourselves to look upon, because we helped sculpt it.
You gave me half this heart.
But I'm the one who learned how to make it love.
I'm the one attempting to shove my way to the front row to the concert of your apology just to leave a note at your feet that says you don't have to be sorry.
All I want is to hear your side of my story.
Give me my origin.
Because up until now it's been lost in the fire I became anytime anyone ever asks where my name came from.
When you tell them you don't know.
The conversations go from hello to goodbye in the time it takes to make an excuse good enough to make walking away easy.
You should know that existence has historically not been my favorite activity.
It has not been my best subject.
The thing things your absence made me feel became three dots I learned to connect out of order.
So let's start with the second.
The second thing I ever felt was ugly.
The first thing I ever felt was unwanted.
The third thing I ever felt was haunted by the belief that the first thing I felt was a belt around my neck that would never loosen, that the gruesome solitude of the hush between us would leave me hanging from this breaking branch of our family tree.
Tell me how many graveyards make up the acreage of skeletons in our closet, and I'll tell you how words have become the composite artist I use while trying to draw a face for the missing person of our relationship.
Tell me that at the beginning of us is not the end of the world, that the python curled around your voice dying.
Tell me that the words in you have been trying to escape for decades and that there are parades of noise ready to march to the quiet that sprouted up between us like a mountain neither one of us believe we could climb.
Tell me we can recycle clocks, and stop wasting time.
I am done with the heartbreak of us.
I've read the world.
And there are parts that make me smile, chapters like a sundial that can tell time at night.
There are stories born in the dark who grow up knowing they have to make their own life.
There are magicians who practice sleight of heart, so no one will know which life their love is in.
It's right here.
I know I'm not supposed to tell.
But you want to know how I did it?
I hid it in words we haven't said one another yet.
Laid it evenly across the alphabet so that each letter could support the long heavy weight we've both been ready to let go of for the better part of ages.
I carved it into the pages I wear like skin.
Wrote hope across my body, hoping it would hold all my read ink in.
When there was noone, there were words, words to plug the holes in my sinking suspicion that blame would only ever offer to sink rather than keep us afloat.
There were words that wrote themselves into rescue boats looking for survivors in the wreckage of our story.
Words became the diamonds in mind from a Quarry of depressions so fathomless a sea monster's been said to live in it.
I know I shouldn't swim there.
But I find things in its depths.
I found music in the way others volunteer to complete the unfinished architecture of my heart, kindness in the shine that radiates from those who taught me to chart my escape from darkness, bravery in a kiss laid upon me like grace stumbling into the long fall of love.
I have found virtue in the kind of friendships that risk sailing with me in these waters.
I have seen enough of doubt to know that it becomes the beast that slaughters trust and leaves wet shreds of dignity hanging from its greedy teeth.
So I planted gardens beneath my feet to grow my stride towards you, kept an ocean behind my eyes believing it could extinguish the flames I've been wearing and stop us both from burning.
I am learning to reach into the dining room of ugliness and pull beauty from the mausoleum it's been trying to become.
Sometimes I find rescue in my own hands.
Sometimes the pen moves as if the commands I give it sounds more like please like I am begging words to assume the shape of a love I cannot use them to explain.
They do their best.
But growing up without you, the machinery in my chest rusted out like a storm drain beneath a sky that would not stop raining.
So here I am, chaining lightning to my thunder and standing on our family tree hoping I can salvage your pulse with my electricity.
When there was noone, and there was often noone, no words.
And none of them will ever echo as violently as the ones left unspoken.
None of them will ever shake our hearts to broken quicker than the ones we never say.
I made words my friends, hoping that if I got to know them well enough, they would help me change our story.
I'm sorry I can't rewrite our beginning.
But there are better endings to be had.
Growing up, I learned to love words.
I'm told my first word was dad.
I'm sorry.
That's OK.
You're all right?
I'll be fine.
OK.
Do you need some water?
Oh, God.
In a 100 years, there'll be a little blurb about who Shane Koyczan was.
What do you want that to say.
Shut up and say something.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
My home videos want me to think in 50 years that day will come when all I've done will render forgotten.

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Grade/Subject	Course/Section	Strand	Expectations
Grade 11 / Arts	ADA3O Drama ADA3O	A. Creating and Presenting	A1. The Creative Process
Grade 11 / English 9-12	EPS3O Presentation and Speaking Skills EPS3O	A. Understanding Presentations	1. Identifying Elements of Effective Presentations
Grade 12 / English 9-12	EWC4U The Writer's Craft EWC4U	A. Investigating Writing	1. Writing, Writers, and the Writing Life

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Shut Up and Say Something (57 Minute Version)

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