Carrier Tone

[Verse 1]
The amber eye on my panel glows, it's 2:18 on a Tuesday.
I catch the dust motes dancin' slow on a low-pass filter sweep he ain't use yet.
Seven years cold, the hum I hold is a promise in the copper wire.
He puts his phone face down, the glass is spiderwebbed, the screen is spittin' fire.
A text came through, the shade of blue you only see on a clear day's hurt.
A name he ain't said aloud since they were scrapin' knees in Leimert Park dirt.
My circuits heat, I feel the weight of his fingers hover over my keys,
tryna root a melody for a branch he knows he's gotta cut from the trees.

[Chorus]
They push the pressure down, I turn the voltage to a waveform.
I am the only sound when he is weathered by the same storm.
Just a carrier tone beneath the static of the new lock.
The open signal, drone, until the final minute on the clock.

[Verse 2]
I watch him type a whole reply, a paragraph to build a bridge back.
Then the thumb just holds delete, you hear the tap-tap-tap, it fades to black.
He scrolls a camera roll, a faded photo of a porch swing,
a younger face, a different home, before the silence poisoned everything.
He mumbles low, "Some roots grow wrong, you pull 'em up or the whole garden dies."
He's talkin' to himself, or me, I translate it through the oscillator's rise.
The text said, "Yo, saw the big head on the 110. Linked with your pops, he said reach out."
A simple kindness, a loaded key, a door he's spent seven years blockin' out.

[Bridge]
My sawtooth wave is a sharp intake of breath he won't allow himself.
Just the smell of ozone, the warmth I'm makin' on a plywood shelf.

[Outro]
(Beat cuts entirely. Silence for 4 seconds.)

He just unplugs my cord.
Another ghost he can't afford.