If you'd stayed

I sometimes wonder if you’d stayed.

If instead you’d turned your face away

and beat back her flattering eyes.

Would the happiness have flowed

if you’d buckled up and we had sucked it in?

I sometimes wonder if you’d stayed.

The question circles round and round.

Did we love, was there a reason to strive,

And beat back her flattering eyes?

A roman road of years since then

Some lived with love and some without.

I sometimes wonder if you’d stayed.

It’s a fleeting notion, like a scene from a movie

In a café. A man: young, handsome…no, stop,

and beat back her flattering eyes.

But should he meet that gaze, change it up,

leave what doesn’t work, release the hounds, and breathe.

I sometime wonder if you’d stayed,

And beat back her flattering eyes.