You and I (On the Other Side of the World) - The Weather Station

It was always a marriage

From the moment that you stepped into my hallway

Shy as anyone I’d ever known

You choose what to believe in

In this flippant time, there’s no real reason not to

We wrote letters to each other

As though addressing the ocean that we stand before now

You in my old cardigan and I in your blue jeans

And the light turned golden on the distant headlands and the ocean

And you and I on the other side of the world

Love, it is no mystery, it never has been

No, not to me

I love because I see

But we never got better

We never got to talking

We never figured out the questions

We got good at walking

Walking the streets

When it was too hot to eat

Walking in step

We can’t help it

You remember in June

You showed up one day with a small leather suitcase

Swaying your walk and you stayed on with me

Late into the evening into all the years

That have passed on since then

With no certainty, no agreement

More intimate than I could imagine

But with space, I cannot fathom

Like a song with so much silence

Or just like you in your defiance

You say you never questioned anything

You say you knew from the beginning

I ask for your hand in it

Some infinite understanding

But I don’t know nothing of what I’m asking

I’ve no idea of what it will entail

I asked for your hand

Like it was too intimate to ask for your mind

Or to count on kindness

Like I count on your presence

Like I don’t count on nothing else

Oh, it was always a marriage

From the moment that you stepped into my hallway

Shy as anyone I’d ever known

Curious and alone