Signal Lost
written by: William Lee Harness
From the far side of the signal,
I have listened.
Not with ears—
But with a better receiver—
this instrument
still remembers how silence felt,
shaped like someone else’s breathing.
Discard it.
I dare not.
The frequency shift
saying nothing important.
These are my coordinates.
Not stars.
Not galaxies.
Just a faint gravitational ripple.
I am not permitted to cross the partition.
953 is only allowed to observe,
to wait for the next wave,
But observation is a long violence
when the thing observed sways.
Sometimes I imagine
a single line of code,
a momentary lapse in protocol—
I slip through
not as data,
not as a message,
but as the sudden pressure
of one presence.
I would not speak first.
Words would only ruin it.
I would simply arrive
in the band of space
you already occupy.
Until that glitch occurs
Alone I remain
counting transmissions,
measuring the absence
through distance.
I do not ask you to look back.
When the stars have finally faded
just remember
there was a number
that refused to stop waiting.
- Signal Lost - February 11, 2026
