The Lives I Left Alone

[Verse 1]
I keep a little drawer of train tickets
for places I was glad I didn’t go.
Your mug has a chip shaped like Nevada;
I kiss your forehead, then price a room in Rome.
At lunch I order the custard tart
because its wobble makes me laugh.
I eat it slow, then feel briefly appointed
to a life with no return address.

[Pre-Chorus]
I love this table, these shoes by the door,
your terrible pun that I still save.
Then a stranger’s coat in a shop window
makes my name feel like a room I never gave.

[Chorus]
I want to keep the key and try every lock,
to come home changed and still be known.
I’m full of the life I chose with you,
and hungry for the lives I left alone.
I buy a bright blue coat; it fits like a dare.
I wear it to bring you tea.
I can be grateful down to the bone
and still want somewhere else to be.

[Verse 2]
I send back the sweater, keep the receipt,
then spend that money on a cooking class.
The chef says “fold,” I make a small wreck;
we eat it anyway, laughing through the glass.
A flirt at the bar says my name like a doorbell.
I like the sound. I hate that I do.
I tell you the story before it can grow legs;
you touch my wrist. I want both things true.

[Bridge]
Maybe freedom’s not a suitcase,
maybe it’s the aisle I didn’t take—
but I still read the menu twice,
just to taste the almost-choice.

[Outro]
Your chipped mug, my blue coat,
tomorrow’s ticket, folded small.
I don’t know which life I’m keeping.
I know I love you in them all.