Raise a Toast

Tonight may we toast to the abandoned, lost children, trying to find their way home 

Tonight may we toast to the most restless of wanderers, forever in flight may they roam

Tonight may we toast to the bruised and the bandaged, brutality, beatings beware

Tonight may we toast to hopeless inequities and traumas together we share

Tonight may we toast to the lost generations of the feared and the misunderstood

Tonight may we toast to the courage and solitude of which those before us have stood

Tonight may we toast to the fury and passion displayed in our fight to exist

Tonight may we toast to the pride, perseverance, and power it takes to persist 

Tonight may we toast to the terrible sacrifice we must make on if to disclose

Tonight may we toast to the nakedness a king feels underneath all his clothes

Tonight may we toast to those laid off and fired, and those not given a chance 

Tonight may we toast to those left in the corner without a partner to dance 

Tonight may we toast to the dropouts and “sickies” who just couldn’t quite make the grade

Tonight may we toast to the fictional characters each child was forced to have played

Tonight may we toast to the teased and tormented and others blamed for their own woes

Tonight may we toast to the withering petals from ash-covered thorns of the rose

Tonight may we toast to those burdened by trauma with scars that have not started to heal

Tonight may we toast to those who are learning their secrets yet to be revealed 

Tonight may we toast to those coated in silence, scorn, spite, stigma, and shame 

Tonight may we toast to the compassionate soldiers who shouldered all of the blame

Tonight may we toast to those departing too early and to those taken by their own hand

Tonight may we toast to those who had suffered through harsh and unjust demands

Tonight may we toast to the hungry and homeless, the accused, and those locked up in jail 

Tonight may we toast for a brighter tomorrow, where diversity will start to prevail