Bullycide In America

• Posted: February 24, 2009 and this post was last modified April 3, 2011.

Lyrics to Wanda’s Song (If You Were Me)

Chris Reading, Eric Reading, John Paul Lourence

© 2004 Back, Back, Back Music. All rights reserved.

Wanda was the one girl we claimed we never knew

Lincoln High School’s homely-coming queen

She barely graduated with the class of ’92

Voted most unlikely to succeed

Rumor had it Wanda never knew who her daddy was

At least that’s what we spread all over town

I guess we always thought that we were building ourselves up

With the sticks and stones we threw to break her down

All the years we thought it didn’t matter

Cuz we never saw her cry

And Wanda never asked us

Chorus

Why, do you hurt me, and treat me like you do

What have I ever done to, deserve this, from you

Would you do the things you do

If you were me and I were you

Looking back I see the pain that we put Wanda thru

And just where all the fun and games were leading

We didn’t realize the damage sticks and stones would do

Cuz it was deep inside Wanda was bleeding

The paper said her death was self-inflicted

But was it suicide?

Cuz the note she wrote said …

Repeat Chorus

Bridge

For every action there’s reaction

Broken hearts don’t just happen

If you put yourself in their position

There’s no good answer to the question …

Repeat Chorus

~

The line that really gets to me every time is “There’s no good answer to the question…” and then to the Chorus because there really is no good answer. It’s so easy to be on the shooting end of the gun, but when you are target, how does it feel? How does it feel to be so trapped? It doesn’t matter if you are 12 years old or 21 years old, bullying effects people of all ages. The effects are so traumatic that they cannot possibly just affect one person; families are missing pieces, homes without mothers and fathers, best friends become memories, and there is just that void that is created when a loved one takes their life. It’s a sad and cruel reality that we need to come to grips with and work towards a solution. Although a complete eradication is not entirely possible, we have seen how the times can change a generation’s view on people [black vs white, gay vs straight, theists vs atheists, and so forth] so why should we give up on another worthy cause?