Waking Up

“Acknowledge that I suffer pain,/ Stand by me through it,/ like it were rain./ Don’t run away, and don’t be afraid./ You are the love for which I’ve prayed./ Being present is the greatest gift you can give./ Sharing our life is the reason we live./ To give an example, take the words that you use:/ For someone to win, must someone else lose?/ For you to be accepted, must I be rejected?/ Perhaps some of our words have been poorly selected./ Let’s never call anyone ‘psycho’ or ‘crazy’/ Because they’re people, with names, like Michael or Daisy./ Labeling others creates a divide./ But we were all meant to be on the same side./ The words that we use can help hurt or help heal,/ So before you start talking, think, “How would I feel?”/ Build up other people, say, “You matter so much!"/ Because your value is something that illness can’t touch./ It’s not based on the things that you have or you do./ Your value can never be taken from you./ You don’t have to earn it, and that’s really good news./ We all can win. No one needs to lose./ So let’s focus on healing the hurts that we’ve got,/ ‘cause being made to feel worthless hurts a whole lot./ We’ll say, “I’m sorry for times I called you that name/ that means ‘you’re not worth as much because we’re not the same’”/ We’ll say, “I promise to not use that word anymore./ Now I know better, you can be sure.”