[Verse 1]
Father entered with his time intact
Though grief had shaken what he'd always known
But living in her world where futures crack
He lost his way to call tomorrow home
Stolorow shows how trauma breaks the flow
Of past and present, future disappears
When partners share a world where time won't go
The ground beneath dissolves through all the years
[Chorus]
When trauma spreads from heart to heart
The future shrinks, falls apart
Hypervigilant, watching moods
Time gets trapped in present loops
Secondary stress takes hold
Future stories won't unfold
Living in someone else's pain
Makes your own time break the same
[Verse 2]
Rothschild names what helpers know too well
Absorbing others' trauma as your own
The empathic heart begins to swell
With wounds that weren't originally grown
The same symptoms start to appear
Constriction, narrowing of sight
Tomorrow fades, only now is here
Caught in someone else's endless night
[Chorus]
When trauma spreads from heart to heart
The future shrinks, falls apart
Hypervigilant, watching moods
Time gets trapped in present loops
Secondary stress takes hold
Future stories won't unfold
Living in someone else's pain
Makes your own time break the same
[Bridge]
Van der Kolk shows the nervous system learns
To dance around another's triggered state
Your body keeps the score, it twists and turns
Reorganized by love that can't escape
Carnes reveals the betrayal bond
Hope that this time closeness stays
Bonded to the cycle's song
Lost in intimacy's maze
[Verse 3]
The partner isn't neutral, standing by
They're pulled into the traumatized field
Modulating self so moods don't fly
Their future to the other's past must yield
Next hour, next shift, next crisis call
The future shrinks to what's ahead
When trauma's world becomes your all
Tomorrow's hope is nearly dead
[Chorus]
When trauma spreads from heart to heart
The future shrinks, falls apart
Hypervigilant, watching moods
Time gets trapped in present loops
Secondary stress takes hold
Future stories won't unfold
Living in someone else's pain
Makes your own time break the same
[Outro]
Time disrupted, love transmitted
Future lost but not forgotten
Healing means reclaiming tomorrow
From the depths of shared sorrow