I traced the stain on the glass Like it had a name for me Steam from the kettle on cracked tile Made the whole room split at the seams Your coat hung heavy on the chair Like it knew what I couldn’t say I bit the inside of my cheek And let the minute drift away Then it hit me in the ribs Like a key turning slow All the little things around me Started telling on the glow The fan, the fork, the folded map The bruise-blue of the pane And I was gone, gone under In the middle of the frame In the empty cryo-bay I hear the human anyway In the empty cryo-bay What’s left of us still wants to stay Turns out the silence has a pulse Turns out the rubble still can pray In the empty cryo-bay I hear the human anyway The train shook coins in my pocket Like a dare I couldn’t take A kid on the platform laughed too hard At a joke the night didn’t make My phone lit up and went dark Like a fish under black ice I saw whole empires in a cup ring And a map in a grain of rice Every face in the window Wore the same half-known ache Same old hunger in the jawline Same old fire in the wake We build our names from the wreckage Then we hand them to the rain And I was gone, gone under In the middle of the frame In the empty cryo-bay I hear the human anyway In the empty cryo-bay What’s left of us still wants to stay Turns out the silence has a pulse Turns out the rubble still can pray In the empty cryo-bay I hear the human anyway There’s a scratch on the back of the glass Where the cold once kept its hold A little frost in the corner Like a story told too old I put my palm to the surface And it answered, faint and plain Not with words, but with the shiver Of a thousand near-returns again In the empty cryo-bay I hear the human anyway In the empty cryo-bay What’s left of us still wants to stay Turns out the silence has a pulse Turns out the rubble still can pray In the empty cryo-bay I hear the human anyway
