The Kitchen

Turn me around from the life that I've chosen,
An alternate history deep in my gut
Vivid as snapshots, bright and unfrozen,
Stopped in their frames by a single word: "but."

Everything there has the haze of near-memory,
Slanted and colorful, precious as gifts
Closely examined, those pictures look softer: we
Rubbed off the detail with too many "if"s.

Refrain:
In the land of no "if"s, I am washing your dishes,
Hearing your laughter from just down the hall.
In the world of no "but"s, I have some of my wishes--
The ones that I don't have don't matter at all.

You're in the armchair, your lap full of virgin wool,
I'm in the kitchen, but that's what I like.
Marry the infinite, anything's possible
If there were no "if"s, we could all wish alike.

Let me tell you a story, this dream was incredible--
I was a married girl, far, far away
With a set of small problems that all seemed so solvable,
From the world of no "but"s, I looked like a cliche.

Refrain

The kitchen, my kitchen, is white-tiled and cluttered
And full of a dozen things still left to plan
It echoes with memories shouted and muttered
All the "but"s bring me right back to where I began.

You are a foreign land, glib and compelling.
I am that cliche girl far, far away
And the things that I think are too strange for the telling
Every "if" drowns me in new shades of gray.

Refrain
In the land of no "if"s, I'm still washing your dishes,
Hearing your laughter from just down the hall.
In the world of no "but"s, I have some of my wishes--
The ones that I don't have don't matter at all.

Notes: I wrote this song for someone I like very much, who lives a long way away from me. In some ways, I think the song fails, because it's not powerful enough. Other people have told me that its very ordinariness (is that a word?) draws them to it. The person who the song is about pronounced it "ambiguous." Well, it is ambiguous.

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