It's a Secret

It’s a secret, you see…
How long we’re gonna have
With the ones who are here with us.

It’s a secret.

Nobody’s gonna tell
Because nobody can tell
How long we’re gonna have
With the ones who are here with us.

It’s a secret.

But we’re human,
And stupid,
And vain…

That’s no secret.

We let our tempers flare
And choose to act as though
We’ve all the time in the world
With the ones who are here with us.

For we are human,
And stupid,
And vain.

It’s no secret:

We imagine we’ll have time
To mend that broken fence—
To let some water pass under the bridge—
To let things cool down
Before admitting we were wrong.

Yet we know about the secret.

Beyond that,
We are so vain,
So stupid,
So human,
We let a parting pass
Without telling those we love
How much we love them.

We hesitate to appreciate.
We second-guess our instinct to share.
We let moments pass.
We leave things unspoken.

We keep it to ourselves,
Waiting for that perfect time.
We tell ourselves the lie
About how there’ll be some other time,
As if we’ve got some guarantee
Set in stone and bound by law.

Stupid, vain humans,
Resenting,
Ignoring,
Taking for granted.

Stupid, vain humans,
Crying for opportunities lost,
Crying for just one more day,
Just one more hour,
One more minute,
Moment.
Crying.

The secret is:
There’s no tomorrow until it is today.
There’s no later until it is now.
There’s no sometime until it is this time.
And when today is too late,
Now is no longer able,
And this time is this loss:

We remember the secret:

It’s a secret,
How long we’re gonna have
With the ones who are here with us.

Shhhh.