Car Crash

And there I was…
Matted hair, dripping in front of my eyes
From the rain, so cliché
There on my knees beneath the lights
Soaked shirt stuck to skin
Shallow breaths out and in
Nighttime sounds stir the air
Crickets and sirens everywhere
And now, my head rests in my hands
My legs too weak to stand
Broken glass beneath scraped knees
Colors blending, “I can’t see.”
My ears begin to ring with a chorus of your screams
And the darkness I couldn’t save you from now plays them on repeat
But there was nothing I could do
Nothing at all that would have saved you…
I look down this stretch of death
Full of mangled metal and rattled breath
Bent up cars all in a pile
There’s not enough help, they see me, “We’ll get to you in a little while.”
So I kneel on this wet street
Where death arrived for you to meet
They’ve got you dressed up in a sheet
Where you landed far away from me
I stand up; wobbly legs carry me to where you slumber
As uniforms and blue gloves arrive in greater numbers
Adrenalin trapped me in a cloud, but now I start to come back out
So I can hear and feel and see the chaos all around
Red and Blue lights still arrive
Officers shake their heads at the sight
Someone finds me, “Miss, are you alright?”
I find sympathetic eyes, “No, sir, not tonight.”
Blue gloves yell, “We’ve got a survivor over here!”
And then more hands and a stretcher suddenly appear
“No, no, I’m fine, my friend needs you first.”
And I point to the sheet as I feel my stomach lurch
Blue gloves reach and catch me as I fall
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, but she’s already gone.”
I go limp and utter my silent goodbye
To a soul that I swear was too young to die
So I let them pick me up and belt me to the gurney
IV fluids and oxygen join me for the journey
Sirens sing my lullaby
Tempting me to close my eyes
And when I wake up, you’ll be sitting by my side
But deep down I know that’s a lie
Soon I see white walls, white coats, and bright white lights
I’ve got stitches in the left arm and a splint on the right
Where they just set the broken bone and wrapped it up real tight
And they told me I was lucky and I’ll be just fine tonight.
But this doesn’t feel lucky and it’s certainly not fair
That I got to leave that road, but I had to leave you there
Don’t they know that you left me? Don’t they even care?
Your loss tears me to pieces, and my soul knows no rest
Now that I’m left with just a memory and a gaping hole inside my chest

As the years go by, and my scars begin to fade
The stabbing pain of loss becomes an everlasting ache
With your picture in my eyes
I revisit the road that changed my life
It’s dark and quiet, like it was that night
And there’s a mist in the air that hugs me too tight
Where I kneel on my knees again beneath the lights
Here again beneath the lights.