train without a station: a different take on the same situation

I thought we could toe the line forever but

You can’t do anything forever

And we had just a little bit too much time

And how fitting for me

Had to ask what it meant

No strings attached? You asked

My heart just doesn’t work like that

I wonder what would have happened if we never sang that song

What would have happened if I left the bottle on the counter when we walked out

What would have happened if you never sat down beside me,

If we just walked inside with everyone else

What if I decided I still didnt want to play pool

What if I never drank too much, if I always drove

What if you never put your hands on my shoulders that first time I sang

What if I never hugged you that first time you talked

Okay, imagine I never spoke up

Imagine I never explained why

And if you’d never sat down and we walked inside,

Imagine we never became friends at all

Imagine the only time I touched your ring was when you handed it to me at the bar-

Just to look at, because I thought it was cool

I wonder if we could have stayed behind the line

In quicksand, fighting, it pulled us in closer and closer

I wonder what would have happened if we had remembered that you can stop fighting, get out, and just walk away

Fighting closer and closer to the line, we realized the line was a tightrope

You took my hand and pulled me up and we walked on the tightrope for a while

It was thrilling, dancing on a tightrope, and you asked me for a knife

a circus, of course there’s an elephant;

But you wouldn’t stop talking about it

When fighting in the quicksand felt like forever,

Spinning on the tightrope was gone in the blink of an eye

And we both knew that one or both of us was going to fall off into the fire below

The fire we lit ourselves, foolishly thinking it wouldn’t get out of control

It was inevitable, one of us falling

But we both did- it was an accident- we fell.

It’s understandable to fall off a tightrope,

So let’s say that’s what it was

but deep down I think that really

we just might have jumped

Or maybe you jumped while I tried to hold on for dear life

And like teens by the pool,

As the boy jumps in he grabs his girl,

pulling her in with him as she shrieks and giggles because yes,

it’s fun to jump and

it’s even fun to be pushed when you know it’s mostly safe,

Even when it’s a recipe for disaster because

There are places to be and her mom will get mad because

Now her clothes are wet and her hair is wet and she’s in trouble

But his glance says it all and she smiles, unconcerned and happy that he pulled her in the pool with him.

Imagine you didn’t listen to me,

Imagine I didn’t listen to you

Imagine you didn’t talk at all

The fire was blazing, treacherous

We should have evacuated

But it felt like thick socks on the fireplace hearth after a long day in the wind in the snow

Which reminds me,

What if it had just been warmer?

What if we weren’t always so cold?

And the fire didn’t burn me, but the metal on your finger did,

Every time I touched it I got burned

I wonder if you noticed that

Just imagine if we never touched the tightrope

Never talked about the elephants at the circus

And for kids, a twin size bed is plenty big enough

What if it wasn’t for us?

I wanted to go to the beach but we ran out of time, which doesn’t even exist

Then time slowed down;

A twist in the movie,

We were granted a little bit more

Sand beneath our feet and fireworks overhead

I think we could have just looked at each other all night

I don’t know if I heard it from your mouth or read it from your eyes that first night, “who IS this girl?”

What if I didn’t admit it?

that night, supposed to be our last,

What if I didn’t admit to you what I could hardly admit to myself,

“attached,” I said in a tiny voice

And you sang with me again, for me, you said

But I think it was a little bit for you, too,

attached.

what if you burned the bridge when you left?

what if you never sent me another text?

what if we hadn’t caused such a wreck?

left each other alone to clean up our own mess?