Dead Circuit

[Verse 1]
The 42 bus hisses brake dust on Manchester Avenue, Tuesday 8:15,
the heat off the asphalt feels like a fever you seen.
Old head on the bench seat, thumb on a Nokia keypad,
worn smooth like a worry stone for a feeling he's always had.
He's scrolling a phone book with maybe four names left inside,
passing the same one, a current that pulls with the tide.
A digital root system, tangled and deep in the glass,
a garden he can't water, a weed he can't pull from the past.

[Chorus]
Dead circuit, thumbprint on the screen is a ghost note.
Dead circuit, the message in the draft is all he wrote.
It's the key to a house with the deadbolt seized tight.
It's the low-battery warning that bleeds in the night.

[Verse 2]
I map my own blood to the lines on his face and the silence he keeps,
the harvest of bitterness nobody reaps.
That number's an invasive species he can't bring himself to prune,
a branch that grows sideways and blocks out the moon.
His thumb stops on a draft from October two-thousand and eight,
a simple six words sealed and delivered by fate:
"Just call when you land, man. You know I'll be up."
A green light he's been waiting on, draining the cup.

[Spoken Word Interlude]
(A cold, digital female voice, slightly distorted, as if from a bad connection)
"We're sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again."

[Bridge]
He looks up from the glow, that low-poly blue,
and for a half-second, I swear that he knew.
A silence ain't empty, it's just got a shape—
the weight of a name you can't ever escape.

[Outro]
The bus pulls away, red lights smear on the glass.
One more contact saved for a future that's already passed.