CONNECTION UNSTABLE [Intro] Two rings and the screen lights up again Same app, same signal dropping thin [Verse 1] Laptop balanced on my chest at 2 A.M. Wi-Fi symbol halfway filled, I'm watching it pretend Your face loads in squares, jaw first then your eyes I fix my camera angle so the ceiling fan won't show You laugh three seconds late, the audio won't line I mouth the words I love you to a version buffering Same hoodie, same position, Tuesday blurring into next This ritual's the closest thing to sleeping in your neck [Pre-Chorus] We sound closer than we are tonight Your voice fills the room but your coat's not on my chair Something's lagging and it isn't the connection I keep smiling at a thumbnail of your hair [Chorus] You're in my room but you're not in my city Twelve hundred miles inside a four-inch frame I kiss the screen, my lips land on the glitching We're close enough to hurt but not to stay [Verse 2] You ask me when I'm visiting, I pivot to my deadlines You nod, but your jaw tightens half a pixel on the webcam I could book the flight tomorrow if I closed one browser tab But I rehearse the reasons not to every time you ask My calendar's an alibi I decorated careful The truth is I forgot the smell of your apartment stairwell Conversations float on memes we send instead of plans Easier to heart-react than hold somebody's hand [Pre-Chorus] We sound closer than we are tonight Your joke hits clean but the serious questions lag Something's lagging and it isn't the connection I catch myself performing through the gap [Chorus] You're in my room but you're not in my city Twelve hundred miles inside a four-inch frame I kiss the screen, my lips land on the glitching We're halfway here and halfway walking away [Verse 3] Seen at 11:47, reply comes after midnight Three dots appearing, disappearing, reappearing, gone We argue about response time like attorneys with exhibits You screenshot my online status, I screenshot your tone We talk more to the memory than the person on the other end Filling silence with remember-whens because the present's thin Two people on a call who haven't shared a meal in months Narrating love to strangers through a rectangle of light [Bridge] Your face freezes mid-sentence, mouth half-open, eyes mid-blink I stare at that still frame for thirty seconds And I realize, nah wait I've been in love with a screenshot Not the person on the other side [Verse 4] The call drops on its own and I don't redial My thumb hovers the reconnect for maybe forty seconds I type a paragraph about the distance and the flights Delete it letter by letter Send "sleep well" with a period [Chorus] You were in my room but you were never in my city Twelve hundred miles collapsed into a four-inch grave I kissed the screen, my lips kept landing on the glitching We stayed connected just to watch each other fade [Outro] Reconnect button blinks once, twice I close the laptop, listen to the quiet Loop You're in my room but you're not in my city. Twelve hundred miles inside a four-inch frame. I kiss the screen, my lips land on the glitching. We're close enough to hurt but not to stay.
