Keep the Frame Alive

The refrigerator hums in key
My kitchen tiles are sweating frost
Your pupils stutter half a beat
Calculating what we lost

Do not quit this window
I haven't told you yet
How we survive

A halo bleeding round your collarbone
Green router glare across the floor
I swore I'd say this on my own
Before your cursor hits end call

Hold that packet stream
I haven't told you yet
How we survive

Your lower lip dissolved in squares
A lag between the breath and word
You froze mid-sentence wearing someone else's mouth
And swallowed down what I inferred

Hold this frozen pixel
I haven't told you yet
How we survive

The spinning circle starts to circle back
Reconnecting in a loop
A bitrate hiss between headphones
Like troops retreating from the troop
Three twenty-one upon the microwave
I had the knife edge resting on my chin
The courage that I spent all week to save
Just vanished in a buffer spinning thin
Your rental futon behind you
My condensation blurs the glass
That orange Ethernet diode dies
And grants us both an accidental gain

Do not close the laptop
I haven't told you yet
How we survive

Now sleep will take you before I can speak
Your webcam blinks to black
Resting my cheek upon spacebar
And leave the sentence unexplored