Signal to Noise

The box has been on since Tuesday night

because I can't stand the way the walls lean in.

I need the canned laughter or the weather report

to act as a buffer against my own skin.

But at three in the morning, the broadcast died.

A salt-and-pepper blizzard filled the room,

hissing like a ruptured pipe or a hive,

turning the hallway into a tomb.

I sat up and watched the blue light swim

in a half-empty glass on the coffee table.

The water was lukewarm, flat and grim,

and my hands were anything but stable.

It’s a loud kind of nothing, a frantic hum

that sounds like the world trying to find its place.

I just stared at the screen until I went numb,

with the flickering snow all over my face.