Interlude in Static

[poetry_zealot]

There is a small room

beneath my basement:
dim light filters through dust;
insects chant on dried petals.


Beside the sealed door
sits an antique screen—
pixels chatter and snap
at nothing but air.


There is a small slit
for my old cassette tape,
lying half-broken
in the forgotten rubble.


Once a month,
I visit:
the aged door groans;
the light flees;
the insects scatter;
the tape, unmoving.


I have to shove us
into the slit
(enticing it to work);
the world is static,
interluded by flashes,
gifting us life
in a sea of pixels.