Out of the Room — Liva

Last bus home on a Friday night
The whole of the city lit up gold
Cafés spilling warm onto the pavement
A queue outside some club in the cold
Headlights, voices, someone laughing
A street that doesn't need anything from me
And I'm just the window seat, just watching
The life of it go by

But I'm not really here on the bus
I'm back at the lunch we had at noon
You stirred your coffee, looked away a little
Said it light, like it was nothing — almost a joke
"I didn't lie," you told me,
"I just didn't tell the truth"
And I nodded, I let it pass
The way you do with a friend you love

But the line kept riding home with me
Past the lights, past the bridge
Because I know that sentence
I've lived in that sentence for years

I didn't lie
I just didn't tell the truth
I called my silence kindness
I called my distance grace
All the things I didn't say
I dressed them up as keeping the peace
I didn't lie
I just left the truth out of the room

trumpet drops out | sparse]
There's a man I never told what I wanted
A friend I let believe she'd hurt me less
A whole soft history of almost-honesty
The careful editing of what I felt
I thought I was being gentle
I thought I was sparing someone the weight
But the truth I kept to keep things easy
Was a small door I quietly closed

vulnerable, close vocal]
And maybe that's the oldest trick there is
The one we never call a lie
Just a pause, just a softer version
Just the part you leave unsaid
But the people that I love
Deserve the whole of what I mean
Not the kindest edit of it
Not the version that keeps me safe

I didn't lie
I just didn't tell the truth
But I want to be the kind of friend
Who says the harder, truer thing
So here's me, in the dark of the bus
Promising the lights I'll try
No more keeping the peace
By leaving the truth out of the room

The bus pulls in, the doors sigh open
The city's still going without me
And I walk home through the warm of May
With nothing left unsaid behind my teeth