"If I Knew Then What I Know Now"

The poem starts by following Shane Koyczan to a stage where he turns his back to empty audience seats and is facing the camera. I felt he was preparing himself to talk to me in a private place where he felt more empowered to share what he had to say; as if the stage gave him courage to share with me his deepest feelings. I also enjoyed how certain expressions, such as his hand movements, were highlighted by the camera. "We so often say 'you're so soft', and the person that touched them last might have said it for the 28th time, but today I'm number 29." This line is strangely romantic, as if he was hoping that he would be the last person to say this to her. Even if he wasn't, it felt like he was content with it if only because he was one of the few men in the world that would be able to say so. His facial expressions during his performance added slight humor and gave life to the words as he was saying them. It seems that Shane Koyczan has a talent for knowing when to slow the pace of certain words in a sentence while speeding through others. Even when speeding through phrases at astounding speeds his words are very clear and the rapid pace adds a dramatic feeling of importance to the message he is trying to convey. This poem is much softer in feel than "To This Day". It is more focused around love, the emotions that come with this feeling and how he felt personally with the girl he first loved.