Andrea Gibson - A Letter to the Playground Bully from Andrea Age 8 1/2 lyrics

Maybe there are cartwheels in your mouth
Maybe your words will grow up
To be a gymnasts
Maybe you have been kicking people
With them by accident

I know some people get a whole lot
Of rocking in the rocking chair
And the ones who don’t sometimes get
Rocks in their voice boxes
And their voice boxes become slingshots
Maybe you think my heart looks
Like a baby squirrel

But, you absolutely missed when you told
The class I have head lice
‘cause I one hundred percent absolutely
Do not have head lice, and even if I do
It is a fact that head lice
Prefer clean heads over dirty ones
So I am clean as a whistle on a tea pot


My mother says it is totally fine
If I blow off steam as long as i speak in an
Octave my kindness can still reach

My kindness knows mermaids never ever miss
Their legs in the water
‘cause there are better ways to move
Through the ocean than kicking

So guess what, if I ever have my own team
I am picking everyone first

Even the worst kid
And the kid with the stutter
Like a skipping record
‘cause I know all of us are scratched
Even if you can’t hear it when we speak
My mother says most people have heartbeats
That are knocking on doors
That will never open
And I know my heart is a broken freezer chest
‘cause, I can never keep anything frozen

So no, I am not "always crying"
I am just thawing outside of the lines
And even if I am "always crying"
It is a fact that salt is the only reason
Everything floats so good in the dead sea
And just ‘cause no one ever
Passes notes to me
Doesn’t mean I am not super duper in fact
My super duper might be a
Buoy or a paper boat
The next time your nose gets
Stuck up the river ‘cause it is a fact
That our hearts stop every for a
Milli-second every time we sneeze
And some people’s houses have too much dust

Some people’s fathers are like attics
I’ve heard attics have monsters in
Their walls and shaky stares
I think if I lived in a house with attic
I’d nightmare a burglar in my safety chest
And maybe I’d look for rest
In the sticks and stones
‘cause my mother says a person can
Only swallow so much punch
Before he’s drunk on his own fist

But the only drunk I ever knew
Was sleeping in the alley behind our church
And Jesus turned water into his wine
So even god has his bad days

But on your bad days couldn’t you just say
"hey I’m having a bad day, "
Instead of telling me I’m stupid or poor
Or telling me I dress like a boy
‘Cause maybe I am a boy AND a girl
Maybe my name is Andrea Andrew so what
It is a fact that bumblebees
Have hair on their eyes and humans, also
Should comb though everything they see

Like an anchorman is not a sailor
Like the clouds might be a pillow fight
Like my mother says
"Every bird perched on a telephone wire
Will listen to the conversations
Running through it's feet
To decide the direction of it's flight"

So I know every word we speak
Can make hurricanes in
People’s weather veins
Or shine their shiny shine

So maybe sometime you could sit
Beside me on the bus and I could say
"Guess what
It is a fact that manatees have vocal chords
But do not have ears
And Beethoven made music
Even when he could no longer hear"

And I know every belt that
Has hit someone’s back
Is still a belt that was
Built to hold something up

And it is fact that Egyptians slept
On pillows made of stone
But it’s not hard for me to dream
That maybe one day you’ll write me back
Like the day I wrote the
Lightening bug to say
"I smashed my mason jar and
I threw away the lid"
I didn’t want to take a chance that
I’d grow up to be a war

I want to be a belly dance or
An accordion or a pogo stick
Or the fingerprints the mason left
In the mortar between the bricks
To prove that he was here
That he built a roof over someone’s head
To keep the storm from their faith
My mother says that’s why we all were born

And I think she’s right so write back soon
Sincerely Yours