The Hum

The TV in the gym lobby hums between stations,

caught between nothing and nothing,

the white noise of all channels compressed

into a single, endless vibration.

I pass it every time I come in.

I've learned not to see it—

just background, just the hum,

just the sound underneath everything.

But today it got inside my head.

The flicker and the hum. The way

the screen goes nowhere,

shows nothing,

never landing anywhere,

never becoming a picture,

just the sensation of being caught,

stuck between signal and silence.

There's something in the static.

Some kind of meaning I almost grasp,

some pattern I could understand

if I just listened long enough.

I stood there, watching the flicker,

listening to the hum,

feeling like the noise

was trying to tell me something

about being stuck,

about the space between one thing and another,

about all the signals

that never quite reach us.

It's just a broken TV.

It's just a sound.

But today it was enough

to make me listen.