Had I known what I knew then,

I would have done it all the same,

hit the roof, flown the coop, kicked the bucket,

but not without a fight, without a last stand.

You don’t finish last if you quit the race.

 

Starting is the hardest part, when

your feet won’t go and your heart beats fast.

Had I known what I knew then,

I would have done it all the same.

Nevertheless, I’d have taken it slower.

 

When the going gets tough, then you soften

the pace to a crawl, belly down, back to the wall.

They can only keep your head under water so long.

Still, had I known what I knew then,

I would have done it all the same.

 

Regrets never pinned me like a voodoo doll,

and wishes fall into the well like a dull thud

in a distant hollow: what I know now, what I knew then,

It’s all the same, what I do now, will never be again,

Yet, it never mattered to any of us anyhow.

 

A drum beats blindly, pulse-passes on to the next one in line,

and the baton passes from your hands to mine and mine to theirs.

I give them nothing more; they earn nothing less.

Time trims the sun’s beams shorter, molds the sky round,

and I if I ever knew it then, I know I know it now the same.