Signal Decay

[Verse 1]
(Sound of a phone ringing, clicks to voicemail. A low synth hums.)
Yo, it's Hale. Uh... it's Wednesday, three-thirteen in the morning.
The peeling paint on the backboard at Rogers Park is a ghost I'm ignoring.
Just thinking 'bout the cold vinyl of the bench, how we mapped out the mission,
how the silence between the texts now is a brand new invasive condition.
It's a weed with a deep root, man, I'm pulling at the soil,
tryna find the point the water stopped, the point the blood started to boil.
We built this thing from gumbo steam and asphalt fumes and shared breath,
now the group chat's a museum exhibit, curated by a quiet death.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the Moog is humming in the background, a low and steady drone,
like it knows I'm practicing the memories for when I'm all alone.
This that preemptive nostalgia, this that ache for what's still here,
trying to bottle up the sound of your laugh before it disappears,
just trying to archive the signal 'fore it's gone...

[Chorus]
The line's got a little static, a hum I can't erase.
Yeah, the copper wire's singing 'bout the distance in this place.
We're standing in the future that we sketched out on the concrete,
but the blueprint's underwater and the air is bittersweet.

[Verse 2]
Remember that October by the dumpster, kicking at a loose stone?
You said, "Future's a room with no key, we just gotta pick the lock on our own."
I been turning that phrase over, a dull key in my palm's crease,
while you're moving different, new post code, signing a whole other lease.
I saw your sister at the Ralphs down on King, she didn't meet my eye,
a quick nod was the eulogy for ten years rolling by.
It ain't a feud, it ain't a fight, it's quieter and way worse,
it's the slow, organic drifting of a secondary universe.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the Moog is humming in the background, a low and steady drone,
like it knows I'm practicing the memories for when I'm all alone.
This that preemptive nostalgia, this that ache for what's still here,
trying to bottle up the sound of your laugh before it disappears,
just trying to archive the signal 'fore it's gone...

[Chorus]
The line's got a little static, a hum I can't erase.
Yeah, the copper wire's singing 'bout the distance in this place.
We're standing in the future that we sketched out on the concrete,
but the blueprint's underwater and the air is bittersweet.

[Outro]
(Synth hums alone for a moment.)
Anyway. You get this. Hit me back. Or don't.
Aight.
(Sound of a hangup click.)