GHOST VOLTAGE

[Verse 1]
(A cappella cold open)
The chicory scent from your grandma's cup on my dash, still there.
Remember the hum off the I-90 overpass? Had a charge in the air.
(Beat drops)
Felt like the whole grid lit, just for a minute, no brownout in sight.
Your laugh was the fuse box sparkin', cuttin' through the Gary night.
We let the subs rattle the rivets on the Broadway bridge foundation,
Felt the timeline bend, a glitch in the simulation.
Every traffic light green was a confirmation code we cracked,
A perfect sequence, a clean current, no lookin' back.
The slag heaps looked like mountains under that sodium lamp glow,
And for a second I forgot this city's voltage is always low.

[Chorus]
That ghost voltage humming, that phantom line is live.
I feel the pull, the potential, but the circuit won't arrive.
Yeah, that ghost voltage humming, a whisper in the rust.
A million watts of memory turning back into dust.

[Verse 2]
*You talk about current, I remember the cold on the sill.*
*The silence after the engine died, that kinda stand-still.*
*You saw a perfect sequence, I saw the check-engine light flicker.*
*Said 'This is it' with a full heart, but my doubt was always quicker.*
*You call that glow romantic? I call it industrial decay.*
*The rebar in your poetry is just holding up the grey.*
*You're tracing schematics for a thing that already blew the fuse,*
*Leaving me to sweep the glass up, that's the part you always lose.*

[Chorus]
That ghost voltage humming, that phantom line is live.
I feel the pull, the potential, but the circuit won't arrive.
Yeah, that ghost voltage humming, a whisper in the rust.
A million watts of memory turning back into dust.

[Bridge]
The signal's still there, it's just buried in the noise.
*A signal to what? A dead line? Don't you hear my voice?*
I hear the static where the harmony should be.
*Maybe the harmony was just you, never really me.*

[Outro]
Transformer quiet.
...Just the hum.