Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words will never hurt me
Truth?
No
Word will always hurt
More than a broken bone
Because bones will heal
But the hurt of the words
Will never leave
They stay and grow
Into a fire in the center of the heart
That threatens the life that the heart belongs to
Get over it
Truth?
No
How can we
The hurt of the words that you here
Is not something we can just
Push to the back
And even if we do
It will eventually crawl back up
Like the monster it has turned into
Fat
Ugly
Too Skinny
Stupid
Dork
Nerd
Truth?
No
But what does that matter
To the accused and the beaten down
When words are repeated over and over and over
They start to become true
Not on the outside
On the inside, in the mind
Where the words grow and metastases
Chocking and strangling us
Till there is no air left to breath
Kids will be cruel
Just don’t listen
Truth?
No
We can plug our ears and scream
But the voices will get through
How can they even try to tell us this
These words are what we believe we are
How can they think that just plugging our ears
Just turning away
Just ignoring it
Will make us not hear
We will always hear
We are not alone
Truth?
YES
We can stand and fight
Against the oppressors
And the ones who laugh
Because alone we will be easy targets
But together we can be strong
We will never be alone
And if you think you are
Look closer
Find them
Because they are there
They are the ones that are silent
They may be in the back or part of the crowd
But you won’t hear a single laugh
Not a single unkind word
Because they know
They understand
And they will stand beside you
We will get through this
Truth?
YES
Because tomorrow today will be history
And when tomorrow turns into last year
They will be history
Dust in the wind and when the wind dies
They will fall
And we will still be standing
Because we are strong
And they may not see it
But the strength is there
Because even though you are
Abused
Pushed back
Pushed down
You fight to stand
Because you know that these word are not all you are
Because they are wrong
And we will stand
