You wouldn’t have ended up broke
two weeks before each payday
unable to pay the rent
or heat the house;

and you wouldn’t have looked for
easy ways out of it: therefore,
you wouldn’t have seen the
open door as an opportunity

and you wouldn’t have poked your
head inside
and you wouldn’t have noticed
the flatscreen TV
and you wouldn’t have taken it.

And even if you’d ended up there,
you wouldn’t have panicked
at footsteps upstairs;

you would have walked out calmly,
rather than fled
so you would not have dropped
your wallet.