The Life Not Lived

Two ways to live in a small Michigan town
And sorry I could not live them both
And being one girl I long considered
And looked best I could into the future of both
I saw the one filled with emptiness and aloneness, yet perhaps less pain

Then took the second, just the opposite
And having perhaps more danger for my heart
Because it was letting others in and refusing to be scared
Though as for that, it'd make it even tougher to live
And they really were not the same

And both quite possible for me to choose
A way to live a life or a way to die while living
Oh, I kept a dead life for another day!
But knowing how my life would differ
I doubted if I would ever change the choice.

I shall be telling this to my children
When they ask about the scars on Mommy's leg
Two lives presented themselves to me, and I-
I took the one much harder but with more rewards
And that has shaped the whole person of me