Viral

It left the room before the speaker Had finished what it meant A line got loose inside the current And outran the argument First a spark and then a signal Then a hand and then a screen By the time the source was speaking It was somewhere it had never been You could feel it when it jumped You could hear the weather change Everybody leaned in closer Everybody said the same It ran ahead of meaning Ran ahead of names Lightning moving feed to feed And setting little fires in frames It ran ahead of meaning Too quick to hold, too bright to save We carried it because it carried us And left the rest behind the wave No one owned the first beginning No one held the final shape Every copy found a sharper edge Every retelling changed its face Context came in after midnight Wearing rain and looking tired But the room had found its weather And the wires had found their fire You could feel it when it gathered When the first reply came through Not because we understood it But because it moved us too It ran ahead of meaning Ran ahead of names Lightning moving feed to feed And setting little fires in frames It ran ahead of meaning Too quick to hold, too bright to save We carried it because it carried us And left the rest behind the wave Pass it on before it cools Pass it on before it lands Pass it on before the question Finds the mouth that understands Not yet money, not yet mandate Not yet storm season entire Just the first electric weather Teaching language how to fire It ran ahead of meaning Ran ahead of names Lightning moving feed to feed And setting little fires in frames It ran ahead of meaning And the correction came back late We carried it because it carried us Past the old horizon gate