I leave voice notes

songs and ideas and stupid little puns

my voice on your phone my words on your brain

because what if I were gone

Tomorrow 

what do I leave but a 9−8 job

half-dead plants and unopened mail

unfinished stories and dirty dishes

my empty promises 

that I would definitely do tomorrow

 

But tomorrow I'm dead and all there is of me

is the voice in your ear playing out of a box

and I hope it breaks your heart 

not to have me anymore

I hope I am the tinnitus in your ear saying I was the best you gave away

and you have to listen to the song I sang

on your birthday, where I wavered out of key

when you didn't care

 

The philosophers left books and scrolls

burned away in Alexandria

libraries only hold so much

that mankind disregards

and even if you lose your phone my voice will keep living on

in clouds and folders, space between

an uploaded ode to lifelong code 

bytes and memory we live and hate,

fuck and weep by,

lying in its torrent, surrounded in space

 

When it's dark and you close your eyes

and I'm not curled into your side

will my voice be what you reach for