I’m trying to learn a new language, it’s not very easy to do.

And I need your help and assistance, so I thought I’d explain it to you.

Next time you are going to speak to me, don’t turn your face away,

for only by seeing the words on your lips, can I understand what you say.

Talk to me more distinctly, not too loud and not too fast,

don’t hide behind a cup or a hand, or keep talking after you’ve passed.

When you impatiently say ‘never mind’, I shrivel up inside,

for I frantically fought to hear what you said,

and you don’t even know that I tried.

The tick of the clock, the song of a bird, the sound on the roof of the rain.

Approaching footsteps, a loved one’s voice, what I’d give to hear them again.

Will you help me to remember, through the picture of a word,

a sound, a melody, that once I loved…

and that once I also heard.