They say a picture’s worth a thousand words
So if you believe that’s true
If your life were captured in one photo
What would it say about you?
Would you be all alone in your photograph,
Or surrounded by family and friends?
Or would it be your favorite landscape?
Towering mountains or a riverbend
Would a smile be dancing across your lips?
A grin that could never be contained
And you can see laughter that bubbled up,
Captured in this photo, forever engraved
Or would you be solemn and wearing a frown
Put there by circumstances beyond your control
From an event in your life that brought so much pain
That it ripped, and it tore, and it gnawed at your soul
And where would you be in this picture of yours?
Would you be in your favorite place?
The location that makes you feel most alive,
Where happiness radiates out of your face.
Or would you be at the place that you call home?
Whether it’s a building, or with people you love
Or a place in time when you felt most at peace
And you felt the sun’s warmth pouring down from above.
And would this photograph be crisp and new,
As though it’s been kept out of sight?
It’s for your own use, kept for just you to see;
It’s only for your own delight
Or are the corners worn, and bent, and exposed
Because you carry it everywhere?
You don’t see a point in having something so beautiful
To keep for yourself and not share
But what if picking the picture wasn’t up to you?
What if everyone around you got a say?
Do you think they see you the way you see you?
Or would their choices blow you away?
Maybe where you see scars, they see beauty
And where you see flaws, they see strength
Or maybe they see bitterness, brokenness, holes
Because you’ve always kept them at arm’s length
Maybe they see helping hands that have lifted them up
Or listening ears they’ve turned to for advice.
But what if they see someone hardened and cold
Whose friendship was not worth the price?
And ultimately, the picture is what they perceive
And the thousand words come from the life that you lead
So live in the way that you want them to see
So they’ll have the thousand words that you want them to read