If we had met at the acquaintance party, and
you'd asked me to dance like a spinning top gone wild,
maybe I wouldn’t have sat sulking on the bleachers,
cursing every song the DJ played.

If you had been my neighbor,
maybe I would’ve had somewhere to run
when my father went on his drunken rampages,
maybe his iron fist wouldn’t have found us, and
I wouldn’t know how to sob while gasping for breath.

If you had been by my side when I was young, ...