A weekly light — poetry, stories, and reflections from the strange in-between.

Static Between Stations

The highway’s a ribbon of coal tonight,
the kind of darkness that feels older
than the world beneath it.
I’m driving the back way home,
windows cracked just enough
to let the cold bite my knuckles.

The radio won’t hold a signal.
Every station jitters —
snatches of hymns,
a preacher’s distant murmur,
two lovers arguing in the static,
a weather alert from last year
bleeding through like an echo
that refuses to die.

For a moment, a voice I know
threads itself into the noise —
soft, familiar,
like someone I once loved
trying to remember my name.
Then it dissolves,
dragged under by the crackle,
and the road straightens again
as if nothing happened.

The world feels paused out here.
Fields flattened to shadow,
porch lights flickering on houses
that might be empty
or might be waiting for someone
who never came back.

I keep driving.
The static keeps speaking —
a language I almost understand,
full of ghosts that aren’t ghosts,
warnings that aren’t warnings,
questions I’m not ready to answer.

November always does this:
pulls the veil tight,
lets us hear the hum beneath life,
the secret frequency
we pretend not to notice
when the daylight’s loud.

But tonight, on this empty road,
there’s no pretending.
Just the engine’s low growl,
the breath of frost on the glass,
and the voice of the universe
trying to tune itself in.

Lantern Note:
Sometimes the world gets quiet enough that the seams show.
Static turns into memory, empty roads feel older than they should, and the night hums with things we can almost hear.
November has a way of thinning the veil — not toward ghosts, but toward the corners of ourselves we usually ignore.
Maybe that’s why the back roads feel different this time of year.
They remember us… even when we’re trying to forget.

🕯️ The Lantern keeps burning every Thursday — stories, poems, and reflections from the strange in-between.

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