Static

The screen shows a face from a different life,

before I had bills or a mortgage or strife.

We’re holding up cans in a basement in June,

howling some half-forgotten, out-of-key tune.

I deleted the digits so I wouldn't be tempted

to ask if the promises we made were exempted.

You went to the coast and I stayed in the rain,

and the silence between us is a dull, steady pain.

I scroll to the bottom of the thread we once shared,

to the Seen mark that tells me you might have still cared.

Four years of nothing, just digital dust,

the slow, quiet clicking of friendship to rust.