[Verse 1] Third floor waiting room smells like damp paper Cheap coffee burning on a hot plate Woman at the desk got tired eyes Stamping forms like she ain’t slept in decades Man beside me holding cardboard boxes Old song lyrics and unpaid bills A suit jacket folded on his lap Like he still thinks he’s got somewhere to be Numbers flash up Nobody speaks Air conditioning rattles for weeks Somebody crying into both hands quietly Like they already seen what waits for them A kid walks past carrying a violin case Never opened it once when he was alive Now he grips it like evidence [Pre-Chorus] Worker behind the glass says softly: “Most people ask about love first.” Then presses another button. [Chorus] Show me the life I nearly touched The road I saw then learned to avoid Every version still breathing somewhere While I turned numb trying to stay safe Was I living or just delaying? Half asleep inside routines Tell me how many doors I closed Calling it survival instead of fear [Verse 2] Room 19 got endless televisions Playing lives that almost happened A woman watches one silently In another life she answered a phone call Stayed in that city Never met the man that broke her jaw Never learned how to hide bruises with makeup Never taught her daughter silence But the alternate life ain’t perfect either Still bills Still sickness Still ordinary mornings That’s what destroys her most Not perfection Just peace Old man near the window starts laughing hard Watching himself become a famous architect Then stops instantly When he sees another version homeless under railway arches The screens don’t judge They just play [Pre-Chorus] A clerk leans close and whispers: “There was never one correct future.” Another stamp. Another number called. [Chorus] Show me the life I nearly touched The door I stood beside for years Every version moving forward While I disappeared inside myself I called fear being realistic Called hiding being calm How many chances died quietly Without anybody noticing? [Bridge] [alarms begin softly] Monitors flicker violently People seeing lives not assigned to them A singer sees himself addicted An addict sees himself clean A mother sees her son grow old A lonely man sees twenty years of love Destroyed by one sentence he never said Voices overlap “I almost left—” “You should’ve called—” “I was going to—” “Why didn’t you—” “I thought there’d be time—” The office lights start failing Printers vomiting paper endlessly Workers shouting into dead telephones Then silence. [Final Verse] My number finally gets called Desk worker won’t look me in the eyes She opens a thick folder slowly Thousands of pages inside Lives where I stayed Lives where I ran Lives where I loved better Lives where bitterness consumed me Lives where I created things Instead of endlessly consuming everybody else’s I ask her quietly: “So which one was meant to happen?” She finally looks up. First emotion all day. Almost pity. She says: “None of them. That was never how this worked.” [papers rustling softly] “You think ruined lives come from disasters. Most are destroyed by hesitation. By people waiting for certainty. Waiting to become fearless before they begin.” She pulls another folder from beneath the desk. Much heavier than the others. “Every person you never met. Every friendship that would've changed you. Every child never born. Every stranger who needed exactly what you carried. Every song unwritten. Every apology unsaid. Every city you were supposed to see. Every version of yourself that could’ve learned how to live...” She places the folder in front of me. It keeps unfolding across the floor endlessly. “All buried under small decisions to stay comfortable.” [Final Chorus] Show me the life I nearly touched The train I watched but never chased Every version still colliding With strangers that became their fate A conversation at a station A random night that changed a bloodline Whole generations disappear Every time we choose to hide I thought caution kept me breathing But safety slowly made me small You don’t notice dreams dying When they fade through tiny withdrawals One ignored call One unsent message One “maybe later” stretched for years Till entire futures rot in silence Built from ordinary fears [Outro] The fluorescent lights buzz louder now Like the whole building’s overheating The woman stamps one final paper. [LOUD OFFICE STAMP] “Cause of death: Waiting for permission to live.” [silence] Then softer: “In every life, something hurts. In every life, something breaks. But the saddest people here...” She looks around the waiting room. At all the folded hands. All the lowered heads. All the unopened violin cases.
