Shane Koyczan Visiting Hours song lyrics

During visiting hours, I had to read to sick people.

The kind of people who had no one.

It was my punishment.

Catholic school community service for farting on a nun's muffin.

It was an accident, I swear to God!

And every day it would start the same way.

She'd say,

"How're you doing?" I'd say,

"I'm doing alright," she'd say,

"I'm doing just fine." Point and fact: the cancer had taken both of her breasts, and I imagine wherever cancerous breasts get thrown, two of them mourned their lost body.

But she could laugh.

She had a laugh like a welcome mat, wore the same kind of smile Curious George would wear if he finally came out of the closet to be with the man in the big yellow hat.

She'd touch where they used to be and say,

You know, it's probably good that they're gone.

My ex-husband used to go about them all wrong." She said,

"Half the time, the only reason my nipples were erect was because they were trying to jump off my body to run away from his tongue." I was thirteen years young, thinking to myself,

"Oh my God, you're awesome." For me, it was all about visiting hours, hadn't read to her in days.

She was too busy teaching me how towatch horror movies and laugh, because all the monsters Hollywood can think up just aren't as scary as letting yourself be talked into believing you can be only half of what you are.

She'd put a hand on each scar and say,

"If you really want to get scared, watch the news.

It's a steeple chase.

Every day, thousands of people face going under thousands of knives, but it's still more cost effective for doctors to pay off lawsuits than it is to save lives.

So don't try walking a mile in my shoes, just wear my pajamas and walk in my dreams instead.

Because this isn't a deathbed." She'd say,

"I'm not gonna give up today, I'm not gonna lay here and take it, because life is as elusive as getting an orgasm from my ex, so sometimes I just gotta fake it.

So if anyone ever tells you, 'you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, give up your foolish dream,' If anyone ever tells you to quit, you gotta make them wear a diaper on their mouth because man, they are just talking shit." Then she'd smile and say,

You gotta let your body be the rocking chair that soothes the tired body of hope.

Let your arms be the rope around the neck of self loathing, let your skin be the clothing that keeps compassion warm in cold streets of regret." She says,

"Don't pray for me yet." I said,

"No problem.

Religion is something I gave up on, along with dieting.

But love, love is a feeling that in me and through me I have often called God, so I will love you." She looked me straight in the heart and said,

"It's a shame they don't make hospital beds for two.

But kid, you got your own shit to do.

And I can't continue to let you to be doing alright or be doing just fine, not when there's a word full of people tired of dressing in shadows, just waiting for you to shine.

Now bring me my goddamn jello." She liked jello.

She liked me too.

During visiting hours, I had to read to the people who had no one, but this is about a woman named everyone, this isn't about death.

It's about the fact that I can still feel her breath in my ear, sometimes I can even hear her say,

"You are not giving up today.

Because I live in a world full of senile underdogs, and I'm pretty sure we're all tired of wearing our choke chains.

We're tired of being treated like walking canes in a world so blind no one can find each other.

We just keep bumping into one another like people are just buildings made of bone that will collapse every time they're made to believe that they were meant to stand alone, but you're not.

Some of us can love.

Some of us look like jokes.

Not funny, it's just the way that people keep falling for us.

And yeah, some of us are gonna get cancer.

And some of us are gonna fall in our showers, but until then you gotta shine because all the time you get, it's just visiting hours."