you die out in a warm buzz of telephone static. and the room is empty again. the machine in my hand is the closest thing i have to you now, and the furthest thing from you. in clockwork the hours pass, and days and weeks and times like these. your name is a series of numbers and sounds, i hold you to my face with my hands, but batteries die and obligations compound, and i put you back on the hook again.

it's hard to seperate you from the receiver, it's more familiar than you are at times. and lines on maps keep it so. i dont want you in my pocket, i want you at my side; and i hope that's where you'd rather be. i want your voice in my ear, but by lips not lines. i want to hold you near always, not just at specified times, and all this music and poetry with its insipid rhyme cant make distance more lovely than none. we can affect our voices to hide things faces dont. antennae fail. sometimes we're not at home. there are so many demands in each day. and cradle eachother on shoulders as we might, you're so often tiny and miles away. love.